People spend too much time on decisions with equally satisfying outcomes

Post by navane » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 8:26 AM UTC

creakingstairs wrote: post #79

Pelam wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This! Often (actually almost always) time it self is valuable for multiple reasons. Spending precious time in the "meeting room" instead of progressing towards (almost any) implementation can decrease the overall value and increase the risks. Also some people strongly prefer action over deliberation, especially by a committee so there is also a psychological cost to the team to consider. With software and a capable t…

I’ve argued for just building POC approach at times and worked out great sometimes. I found the issue was usually with management. Many have been extremely reluctant to throwing away code. Even though writing POC and re-doing everything will take the same time as planning for ages and doing it once.

Post by nly » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 9:00 AM UTC

chii wrote: post #29

brian_cloutier wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not a paradox but it can be irrational. When the two choices have similar utility the cost of distinguishing them is high and the benefit of making the correct choice is low. There is a crossover point where it does not matter which option you choose, putting more effort into your decision can only leave you worse off, and this article claims we tend to continue putting in the effort well past that point.

> this article claims we tend to continue putting in the effort well past that point. it's because people have the irrational belief that their thinking and reasoning more about a problem/decision makes their outcome better. I think the common symptom found in software is design analysis paralysis. A software team end up using tonnes of time fretting about design choices (often as a committee), rather than just use t…

Post by Uhhrrr » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 9:17 AM UTC

Post by duckmysick » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 9:38 AM UTC

nly wrote: post #93

chii wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this article claims we tend to continue putting in the effort well past that point. it's because people have the irrational belief that their thinking and reasoning more about a problem/decision makes their outcome better. I think the common symptom found in software is design analysis paralysis. A software team end up using tonnes of time fretting about design choices (often as a committee), rather than just use t…

It can be worth agonizing over the decisions early on while the system is simple and easy to change. Later on it's often not logistically, politically or socially justifiable to go back and fix or improve an original bad design decision and re-base and retest everything built on it. The result is engineers sat around muttering "I told you so" to themselves and wasting weeks debugging and hacking around bugs.

Post by jaclaz » Tue, Aug 02, 2022, 9:45 AM UTC

tibbetts wrote: post #19

I like to flip a coin when the decision is difficult. If the answer is satisfying, then either I had an unarticulated preference or it didn’t matter. If the answer is unsatisfying, then I had an unarticulated preference and I can just choose the (apparently preferable) alternative.