[wordup] Making Decisions in a Group

[Adam Shand]

This is interesting, at Internet Alaska we had a weekly "architecture
meeting" which was for the technical stuff to discuss the state of the
nation and brainstorm on how to do things.  In retrospect I think that
one of the reasons it worked so well is that some of the below
principles were unconsciously applied.

Also as Personal Telco is growing up and we're needing to make fairly
important decisions, and it's becoming apparent that making good
decisions with out face time is *hard* and that it's easy for
constructive suggestions to just feel like criticism and nitpicking by
the recipient.

Adam.

PS. Note that anywhere you see a WikiWord (smashed together mixed case
words) or a Something:WikiWord it's a link on the 

From: http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?VotingIsEvil

Voting is one of the worst ways to make decisions in a group. First,
Wiki:ArrowsTheorem  shows that no voting system--no matter how
clever--can ever succeed in the face of strategic voting. The strategic
voting doesn't need to be conciously held. Wiki:AbileneParadox shows how
a vote can fail due to implicit social forces.

Ultimately, the root failure of a vote is that it forces the
participants to come to one of a limited set of choices. In the article
summarized on HealthyConflict, "Managing Conflict: How Management Teams
can have a Good Fight" Harvard Business Review Nov '97 clearly
demonstrates that organizations that limit choices create much more
conflict than organizations that actively seek out and debate
alternative options, even if they are later discarded.

The deep reason is because often the choices presented are either not
the most optimal choices or are not obviously the most optimal choices.
Thus, people who disagree with the final outcome may not be suitable
assuaged that the choice was done with due procedure.

Indeed, procedural justice (ala FairProcess ) is another reason not to
limit input on the options. First, people need to know that the decision
was made in full awareness of all information that could be made
available in a reasonable amount of time. Second, since a vote is a
discrete, ZeroSum? game, the losing side loses absolutely.

>From "Managing Conflict," one facet of low-conflict resolutions was that
the resulting solution often incorporated ideas from many collaborators
instead of just one, as with a vote. This made everyone feel like their
presence added something to the team and that their voice was listened
to. Contrast this with a vote one person's input is unilaterally and
completely accepted to the ignorance of the others.

In a negotiated settlement, a better choice to voting is often a
compromise solution. This goes against much culture in North America
however where an often heard phrase is "Compromising is losing!" However
from a purely economical point of view, compromise is often
ParetoOptimal? . Indeed, the most optimal solutions can be made if all
parties share all information with each other, clearly explain their
needs and goals, and negotiate in good faith. That is, they collaborate
with each other. ("Toward Multidimensional Values in Teaching: The
Example of Conflict Behaviors" Academy of Management Review, July 77) On
the other hand, as you know this system fails down as soon as one
individual fails to act in good faith. Still, as I said above, the
middle ground is more likely to appease everyone than one extreme or
another.

Votes serve a purpose though. They formalize decisions that need a
strong rational and provable grounding, like law. They can also force
decisions that will otherwise drag on forever. For large groups where
face to face negotiations can't be made, they serve as a binding
representation of the general will of the group.

Nonetheless, I think (although I am not aware of any studies that show
this) that most people cannot actually make discrete decisions like
votes often demand. For instance, on KuroShin , many people would like
articles to survive because they are interesting, but they are also
aware that the articles aren't well written. This vote creates a tension
between the two discrete modes (vote it up, dump it) that would be more
optimally solved by letting someone rewrite the article before it gets
published. -- SunirShah