In our last blog post, we examined decision making in an agile team. Here’s what we found: decisions have to be taken, even in agile teams. And, of course, people don’t always agree with each other.
I suggested consultative individual decisions as a potential solution. In practice, this means that a team member is chosen to consult with all the other members involved and then take a decision.
Reversing the learning culture
Many companies, however, are only able to do this by turning their culture on its head. If, in the past, managers have always been the ones to take decisions, now the team members must take them. In terms of moving projects forward, it is much more important to just make a decision than to agonise over the ‹right› decision. But then, this means that there are no wrong decisions either. The chosen team member always takes the right decision according to the information available at the time, even if it later turns out to be a mistake. Too many companies have cultures that see decisions as something long-term or even final and stick with them for a very long time. When taking consultative individual decisions, however, the decision-making cycle must be short, and it must be possible to revise decisions if it becomes clear that they’re not going to deliver the desired results. This removes both the pressure and difficulty from the decision-making process.
Practising and learning
All of this works well, but it requires personal training and must be practised. Not only does everyone need to be heard, but each individual must be also be capable of presenting their position. Sometimes this takes courage. It’s not always easy for people to express their thoughts, and it takes a bit of fortitude to accept your opinion eventually being rejected.
