Okay, so I wanted to share something I tried out recently. It’s related to making decisions, specifically when things feel a bit messy and everyone has a different opinion. It kinda reminded me of some stuff I vaguely read about, you know, structured decision making, maybe like what folks such as Simon French talk about, but way, way simpler. This was just me trying to sort things out in a practical way at work.
We had this situation, a new project feature. Two main ways we could build it. Approach One was the quick and dirty way. Get it out fast, less work now. Approach Two was more involved, take longer upfront, but maybe, just maybe, be more solid down the road. The team was pretty split. Arguments were going back and forth, getting nowhere fast.
I thought, hang on, let’s just stop arguing and try to break this down somehow. I didn’t want complex models or anything, just clarity.
Getting Started – Just Listing Stuff
First thing I did was pull the main folks involved into a quick chat. No big meeting, just a huddle. I grabbed a whiteboard (well, the digital version we use).
I said, let’s just list what actually matters for this specific feature. Forget arguing which is better for a second, just list the criteria. We came up with things like:
- How fast can we get something working?
- How stable will it likely be in 6 months?
- How easy will it be to fix if bugs pop up later?
- How much developer effort now?
- How much developer effort later (maintenance, potential rework)?
- Impact on user experience if it’s unstable?
Looking at Each Option
Then, we took each approach, one by one, and just talked through those points.
For Approach One (Quick & Dirty):
- Speed Now: High. That was its main selling point.
- Stability Later: Low to Medium guess. Risky.
- Ease of Fixing: Probably Low. Quick hacks are often hard to untangle.
- Effort Now: Low.
- Effort Later: Potentially High. Big rework maybe?
- User Impact: Medium risk. Could be annoying if buggy.
For Approach Two (Slower & Solid):
- Speed Now: Low. Slower start.
- Stability Later: High guess. Designed to be robust.
- Ease of Fixing: Likely High. Cleaner code, better structure.
- Effort Now: High.
- Effort Later: Likely Low. Should just work, easier maintenance.
- User Impact: Low risk. More likely to be reliable.
Making the Call
Just seeing it laid out like that, very simply, changed the conversation. We didn’t even assign scores or weights like the really formal methods might do. We just looked at the lists side-by-side.
It became obvious that for this particular feature, long-term stability and ease of fixing bugs were actually more critical than getting it out the door two weeks earlier. The potential pain from Approach One, the rework, the late-night bug hunts, just wasn’t worth the initial speed advantage in this case.
So, we collectively decided on Approach Two. The argument just kind of… stopped. Everyone could see the trade-offs clearly.
Final Thoughts
It wasn’t rocket science. It wasn’t a super-formal decision analysis using fancy terms. But just the act of structuring the discussion, listing criteria, and evaluating options against them made a huge difference. It cut through the noise.
Definitely something I’ll try to do again when faced with confusing choices. Sometimes the simplest methods, just breaking things down step-by-step, work surprisingly well. Just a bit of structured thinking helped us get unstuck. Practice makes perfect, I guess.
