31–40 of 40 posts
I'm not sure if it's a stylistic choice or a badge of 90s hackerdom, but this and the next top HN personal blog post right now have no scaling or view metas and are impossible to read on a phone. I feel like open decision-making isn't working well if it hasn't reached a consensus yet about mobile readability. (I'm just being snarky because I'm in the middle of rewriting a ton of ancient mobile-unfriendly code, but, r…
I read the article and while the approach seems reasonable, in real life it doesn't always work. My colleague tried a similar method recently and the result was a total disaster. In stage I, collecting the inputs, he gathered everybody's opinions. In stage II, consensus, everybody was happy. Why? Because person A said we should do A, person B said, "Fine, but we should also do B", person C said, "that's perfect, but…
“The second possible outcome is that the poll did not produce a clear consensus. For example, an 80-20 split is a fairly clear consensus, but 60-40 is not a consensus. A 5-2 vote seems on the surface like a consensus, but if all of the votes in the majority were from the Engineering team and both of the votes in the minority were from Marketing then there is no consensus: there's a departmental conflict. If the consensus isn't clear to everyone in the room, it's better to follow the steps below than to pretend that there was a consensus.“
QA, in your example, hasn’t consented. Therefore no consensus.
It’s important to distinguish between consensus and majority rule. They are not the same concepts, though seemingly similar.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not parent, but I have similar encounters. Japanese decision making (especially in big orgs) is consensus driven. Multiple stakeholders are consulted, various options considered, all opinions weighed (in theory). This process is, consequently, not very agile and the more stakeholders the more time a big decision will take. Not until everyone is happy is a final decision put down. But part of this is because once a de…
Problem in Japan with that approach is that decision making is more often than not guts-based and driven by seniority/authority than an "open decision" like described in this article.
Yeah, and by “consensus” it usually means “tell the subordinates what the boss wants no questions allowed”
I'm not sure if it's a stylistic choice or a badge of 90s hackerdom, but this and the next top HN personal blog post right now have no scaling or view metas and are impossible to read on a phone. I feel like open decision-making isn't working well if it hasn't reached a consensus yet about mobile readability. (I'm just being snarky because I'm in the middle of rewriting a ton of ancient mobile-unfriendly code, but, r…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not practical in a lot of organizations, but something I like to do, when possible, in the face of a non-consensus decision is simply to wait. That might seem inconceivably frustrating for people who like to make continuous changes - especially if the delay is weeks, months or even years. But sometimes a good idea or answer will develop during that time. If a good solution doesn't emerge, then sure, it's possibl…
That seems like good advice at first pass but now i’m sitting here thinking about entropy and chaos. If we choose “wait” - is that not an illusion? E.g. should we go in direction A or B with our product? Wait. Ok - but still our market share is continuing to change, it’s just we’re no longer trying to influence it?
Instead of choosing one of those and getting stuck with (and having to justify) the consequences, wait until the downsides can be reduced, or an option C becomes available.
I read the article and while the approach seems reasonable, in real life it doesn't always work. My colleague tried a similar method recently and the result was a total disaster. In stage I, collecting the inputs, he gathered everybody's opinions. In stage II, consensus, everybody was happy. Why? Because person A said we should do A, person B said, "Fine, but we should also do B", person C said, "that's perfect, but…
In your example there is no consensus as Ousterhout would define it. From the article: “The second possible outcome is that the poll did not produce a clear consensus. For example, an 80-20 split is a fairly clear consensus, but 60-40 is not a consensus. A 5-2 vote seems on the surface like a consensus, but if all of the votes in the majority were from the Engineering team and both of the votes in the minority were f…
I remember this story as the approach seemed quite reasonable to me initially. However, the weak point in this case was that people cared only about only a limited set of items, mostly related to their work, and were unable to grasp how the aggregation of everything agreed upon would influence the outcome.
That's the point where a good manager should step in and say something like, "B and C, I agree that what you propose is important, but we can't possibly realize everything everybody is asking for. Therefore we will have to consider your requests on another occasion."
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In your example there is no consensus as Ousterhout would define it. From the article: “The second possible outcome is that the poll did not produce a clear consensus. For example, an 80-20 split is a fairly clear consensus, but 60-40 is not a consensus. A 5-2 vote seems on the surface like a consensus, but if all of the votes in the majority were from the Engineering team and both of the votes in the minority were f…
I'm not sure. There was just one representative from each department/team, and there were around 20 of them. Only one objected. So if "80-20 split is a fairly clear consensus", 95-5 is even more so. I remember this story as the approach seemed quite reasonable to me initially. However, the weak point in this case was that people cared only about only a limited set of items, mostly related to their work, and were unab…
This is the critical part. If the QA objects there is no consensus. Doesn’t mean management won’t decide in favor of the others, but no consensus has happened if a major group objects.
“Oh Concensus - The process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values, and policies in search of something in which no one believes, but to which no one objects; the process of avoiding the very issues that have to be solved, merely because you cannot get agreement on the way ahead. What great cause would have been fought and won under the banner: ‘I stand for consensus?'” - Margaret Thatcher