I honestly can't figure out how to apply this to the real-life disagreement I had today.
> Will the decision slow down, harm, or break the business?
That depends on who's view you go with? In my opinion, my choice will not "slow down, hard, or break the business". But the person I was arguing with felt that my choice did, and had an alternative choice he wanted to make. And of course, he felt that his choice did not "slow down, hard, or break the business" and that mine did. We can't even agree on whether to use the framework!
Perhaps one defaults to "just do it". Further, what do you do when you coworker refuses to put forward a rationale for their choice? In my example from today, he had an opinion/action he wanted us as a company to take, but could not provide a decent rationale to it. To paraphrase, it was "we should change X to better support my workflow"; my counter argument was that changing X was counterproductive to and basically eliminated goal Y, which we had just received a (reasonable) mandate from on high to accomplish. Further, his own workflow would be hampered by X, and a simple change to his own workflow would better accomplish his own goals while allowing us to maintain goal Y. He literally refused to respond to that position, but still wants us to do X.
Assuming your coworkers are rational is a terrible idea in my experience. Unfortunately, IDK what else one can do, and IME rational arguments are ignored and bad decisions are made and people start looking for escape hatches.
> Will the decision slow down, harm, or break the business?
That depends on who's view you go with? In my opinion, my choice will not "slow down, hard, or break the business". But the person I was arguing with felt that my choice did, and had an alternative choice he wanted to make. And of course, he felt that his choice did not "slow down, hard, or break the business" and that mine did. We can't even agree on whether to use the framework!
Perhaps one defaults to "just do it". Further, what do you do when you coworker refuses to put forward a rationale for their choice? In my example from today, he had an opinion/action he wanted us as a company to take, but could not provide a decent rationale to it. To paraphrase, it was "we should change X to better support my workflow"; my counter argument was that changing X was counterproductive to and basically eliminated goal Y, which we had just received a (reasonable) mandate from on high to accomplish. Further, his own workflow would be hampered by X, and a simple change to his own workflow would better accomplish his own goals while allowing us to maintain goal Y. He literally refused to respond to that position, but still wants us to do X.
Assuming your coworkers are rational is a terrible idea in my experience. Unfortunately, IDK what else one can do, and IME rational arguments are ignored and bad decisions are made and people start looking for escape hatches.
Perhaps we have bigger problems.