HELP. Team's Decision Making Process

[philso]

I would second Frank's advice to use weighted objective tables for situations like this. My son teaches this to the more advanced FLL teams he coaches and mentors.

I would also strongly advise against voting. Voting is good if every participant is truly making their own decisions, independent of how everyone else votes. Often, people are voting for what their friends chose rather than evaluating the facts and making their own decision.

[lark95]

Originally Posted by philso

I would also strongly advise against voting. Voting is good if every participant is truly making their own decisions, independent of how everyone else votes. Often, people are voting for what their friends chose rather than evaluating the facts and making their own decision.

This is very good advice. Not every member a team has the same experience or knowledge level. On our team all of the major decisions may be discussed by the whole team but the final decision is up to the team captains and a few very good SME's. The captains are also the ones responsible for a bad decision. This helps to keep them on track and focused on what is best for the team not just what they might want.

As a team captain myself i feel that this works very well.

[pntbll1313]

JVN has a great outlook on this.

Originally Posted by JVN

Voting is not an engineering process. We will never vote on a design.

Voting isn't a logical choice. You should be weighing the pros and cons of each decision. Someone with experience should be leading this discussion. Hopefully you can find tools to help you weigh the costs/benefits of each decision you are making so that you can arrive at the best decision. Make sure to factor in your resource limitations when you do this!

[philso]

Originally Posted by lark95

This is very good advice. Not every member a team has the same experience or knowledge level. On our team all of the major decisions may be discussed by the whole team but the final decision is up to the team captains and a few very good SME's. The captains are also the ones responsible for a bad decision. This helps to keep them on track and focused on what is best for the team not just what they might want.

As a team captain myself i feel that this works very well.

I have seen instances where someone is voting for something because their friend is voting for it. In situations like this, they are not adding any thing to the decision making process and strictly speaking, they are no longer necessary to the process.

I totally agree with the JVN quote that Pete posted.