Lots of meetings, and pretty “spirited” discussions during those meetings.
However, once consensus was reached, everyone fell in behind it, and supported it unequivocally. No “hidden resistance.”
One of the drawbacks to consensus decisions, though, is that everyone can agree on a crap decision.
There’s even an old fallacy about it, called The Abilene Paradox[0].
I see this pattern happen consistently even with really good engineers:
* Identify a problem and design a solution for it
* Apply the solution and it fixes the problem
* Later a problem occurs with the solution, so
* Apply a fix for that solution's problem
* Later another problem happens somewhere in the "solution chain" and the same repair cycle is applied
I don't like that words.
If I'm one of the proponents, I'll defend it.
If I'm against, I may accept and implement that decision, but I'm not going to die in that hill.
PS: Just reading this, brings me nightmares from the 2020 Zoom meetings.
All In is a small, free tool I built to quickly check whether people actually stand behind a decision or are quietly unsure.
After a decision, participants answer a single question independently. You see where support is solid, where it’s weak and where follow up is needed.
No accounts, no setup, no facilitation overhead.
It’s intentionally simple. Meant to be used right after decisions, before silence turns into delay.
Feedback very welcome.