Argument Cultures and Unregulated Aggression

There are two nice bullet points in the actionable part of this article. I wish they had been mentioned earlier because I feel many will not make it all the way through.

The explicit separation of hypothesis generation and argumentation / evaluation of alternatives is good advice.

It's also helpful to take an iterated "2 pass approach" the argumentation/evaluation phase: first have everyone state their arguments, then isolate the important criteria upon which the proposed alternatives truly differ (e.g., team familiarity, fitness to application area) and try to establish how these are related and make sure these criteria are related to the end goal (e.g., quality product delivered on time and at cost). Then throw out any arguments that aren't related to the most salient criteria and iterate. This is a useful decision making process even when you're arguing with yourself.

However, divorcing advocate from advocacy is not always a good idea because it assumes everyone in the room has the same set of experiences. This is never the case; people often suggest a particular solution precisely because they understand that solution (or a proposed alternative) well enough to have an experience-backed opinion; others in the room might not have the same experience, and so are unlikely to make the same arguments for/against a solution as other team members.

In general, the problem isn't argumentation. Argumentation, broadly defined, will hopefully always happen whenever two mutually exclusive options are on the table. It is unavoidable unless you're willing to engineer by coin flip. The problem is ego and lack of respect and empathy.

When team members respect and have empathy for one another, argumentation won't lead to these problems. Similarly, a lack of respect and empathy or an inflated ego cannot be solved by mediation of particular arguments; it's a larger issue that should be dealt with on its own terms.

A good writeup. But who decides who is being aggressive? How do we avoid the same short-circuiting that happens with "You seem really frustrated", repackaged as "You're being really aggressive"? Are participants allowed to accuse one another of aggression, or must that be done by an observer or outside party?

If a participant is a member of a group that is stereotyped as "aggressive", and that individual is accused of aggression, is this accusation automatically an invocation of the stereotype -- and therefore an unfair attack? If not, how do we separate such an accusation from one that truly rests only on the individual's behavior?

And is showing passion in an argument a bad thing I remember at a conference on the last day some one stood up to speak on a motion "affiliate to the Anti Nazi league"

This motion was always going to pass unopposed But Alan stood up and did a passionate 4 minute tour deforce speech that is the only time I have seen a real standing ovation

Frankly, that's a terrible article, full of sexist stereotypes. She is reading too much into it. Just briefly: Sometimes people argue because they genuinely think their favorite tool is superior, and want to help others be more efficient. Sometimes people speak loudly because they are genuinely excited about something. I doubt there is any authority or respect to win by good arguing about technology (especially on online forums). Furthermore, any authority to be likely won by arguing only exists if people respect it; if one stops caring about people "gaining authority" by arguing, then there will not be any authority to be gained by that. [Edit: She also underestimates curiosity - sometimes I argue and play devil's advocate just because I am curious why the other smart person has a different opinion, how good is their argument?]

The only valid complaint in the article is that people judge assertive women more negatively than assertive men, which is true and unfortunate.

It's also amusing that she blames engineer's arguing for the competitive atmosphere, while being from the US, which has this hyper-competitive capitalist culture, which I rather despise and I am not the only engineer who does. (Another fun fact - I am native Czech speaker, and we have two different words for "argument" - "debata" and "hadka", the former implying a civil one, the other one meaning one where people are angry at each other. I am not really sure which meaning the article uses, and I pretty firmly against the latter - being a sensitive male, but I greatly enjoy the former.)

The article is very clever in one thing, though. Now anyone who argues with it can be labelled as aggressive (or terrorist?). Humans and their mindgames, so funny.