Jun 13, 2019 09:30:00

'Rough Consensus' to make decisions quickly in a flat organization

by

Christopher Holden

If you are an organization that gathers with a powerful leader, everyone will follow what the leader decides. However, in a flat organization where leaders are part of a team, it can take some time to reach an agreement in making decisions. It is thought that it is useful to measure the team's sense of warmth and get 'rough consensus'.

[Internal Memo] Principles for Decision-Making in a Flat Organization
https://doist.com/blog/decision-making-flat-organization/

Todo list & schedule · task management app 'Todoist' developer /

Doist , head of the back-end team Roman Imankrov said Doist 'Does open and honest communication improve the decision-making process' As a result, the company culture of “hearing” about everything from technical issues to managing teams and products was formed.

However, when a designer asked for an opinion on a draft of a logo, there is a case where everyone who has been asked turns into a 'professor of logo and font' and an opinion returns that the designer is overwhelmed. Mr. Immankrov has come to think that 'it is not good to collect too much opinion'. At that time, I met the idea ' rough consensus ' that David D. Clark of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) created it in 1992.

Mr. Clark showed the following two points.
We reject the following: king, president, vote
We believe the following: 'Rough Consensus' and 'Running Code'

Specifically, in the IETF, 'Hamming voting' was being conducted instead of the voting by raising hands. As the name implies, when you agree with your opinion, you hum instead of raising your hand. As it is difficult to know who has agreed with which opinion and the anonymity is increased, and it is not possible to know the number of people who specifically agree, it is not possible to make decisions based on the result of the vote. But instead, they can measure the temperature of what opinion they have and how many supporters, so they can advance the debate.

by Edwin Andrade

The 'rough consensus' is intended to move forward anyway without obtaining the consent of all, so the opinion 'I think that I can do it with Option A but I think it would be better with B' is the opposite to Option A Will go forward without consideration. Also, because it is easy to disagree with asking 'Everyone is OK with Option A', as in 'Are there people who can not live with Option A?' It takes a form.

If you disagree with this question that 'Option A is not acceptable,' you need to show the fundamental flaws of Option A and make an alternative, not 'Because you do not like it.' If it is not worthwhile to spend time to express an opinion, it is not an opinion that only delays the argument. However, it may be important to have a common understanding of what is fundamentally flawed as an organization, as there may be dissent such as 'confuse the user unnecessarily' or 'it costs more than revenue'. That's it.