Deadlock

[Taylor]

I would urge your team to re-evaluate how it handles the design process.

In my experience, most arguments are due to the fact that people are protective of their ideas and take any questioning about their design as a personal insult. All team members need to understand that ideas/concepts don't belong to any person, they belong to the team.

Voting is dangerous. Using the aforementioned decision matrix (weighted table) will allow the team to come to an objective solution to the problem. Whenever a vote is taken, there are always people who voted against, and will remain loyal to their preferred idea (think of the "Don't blame me, I voted for XXXX" bumper stickers). These team members will take any opportunity to say "I told you so" and will become a poison to the team.