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I've found consensus decision making to be frustrating in the environments I've encountered it. A lot of flip flopping and lack of follow through. Who made th

I've found consensus decision making to be frustrating in the environments I've encountered it. A lot of flip flopping and lack of follow through. Who made that decision? We did. Can we give up on that and try something else? Of course. I kinda like to have at least a shepherd for the day to day decisions, if not a commander. In practice in my current environment it's been the occasional PM that takes some ownership that fills that role, but in many groups I see the floundering without leadership. Internally I think they think they're making progress because everyone on the team is always happy with their decisions, I may just be the old curmudgeon that's frustrated with what I see as wasted effort.

criley2 10y ago
In my utterly-average agile environment, it's not hard. Your peers form an agile group to deliberate. You have non-management product owners and stakeholders to guide you (shepherd you). You have a supervisor who deals with HR business like time off, but is unrelated to your product decisions.
specialist 10y ago
While it can work, "consensus" usually means ad hoc, no accountability, no followthru. This essay was illuminating: Tyranny of Structurelessness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tyranny_of_Structurelessness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tyranny_of_Structurelessne...
- tedks 10y ago
  While I've always thought that essay made good points, it's somewhat dangerous to overinterpret the thoughts of a Stalinist on groups without structure. Her solution is (obviously) to just have hierarchical structure, but this leaves you with the same problems as structureless, there's now just a channel by which people who play the game well can pretend to be accountable. Stalin himself proves that hierarchical groups aren't more accountable, even if they nominally have mechanisms to be so.
- proksoup 10y ago
  Yes, <3 that. "Contrary to what we would like to believe, there is no such thing as a structureless group." The same essay was linked to me a previous time I made a similar public complaint :)

criley2 10y ago

In my utterly-average agile environment, it's not hard. Your peers form an agile group to deliberate. You have non-management product owners and stakeholders to guide you (shepherd you). You have a supervisor who deals with HR business like time off, but is unrelated to your product decisions.

specialist 10y ago

While it can work, "consensus" usually means ad hoc, no accountability, no followthru. This essay was illuminating: Tyranny of Structurelessness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tyranny_of_Structurelessness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tyranny_of_Structurelessne...

tedks 10y ago
While I've always thought that essay made good points, it's somewhat dangerous to overinterpret the thoughts of a Stalinist on groups without structure. Her solution is (obviously) to just have hierarchical structure, but this leaves you with the same problems as structureless, there's now just a channel by which people who play the game well can pretend to be accountable. Stalin himself proves that hierarchical groups aren't more accountable, even if they nominally have mechanisms to be so.
proksoup 10y ago
Yes, <3 that. "Contrary to what we would like to believe, there is no such thing as a structureless group." The same essay was linked to me a previous time I made a similar public complaint :)