So ... what’s your decision

I was in a design review led by a new team member, a very typical Amazon style design meeting: 1. The presenter wrote a 1-pager document that defined the problem and evaluated two possible solutions 2. The reviewers read silently for 5 minutes then asked the clarification questions. In a proper Amazon way we reasoned which solution was a 1-way door and which was 2-way door. At the end, a tenured reviewer asked: “So what are we going to do next?” Silence... After a few awkward seconds I called out the new team member who was running the meeting: “You had good analysis of the pros and cons of the two solutions. Both of them seem to be 2-way doors that can address the problem. What is your decision?” “Well I was hoping someone to tell me the decision in this meeting.” Ha! I said “ You are the lead engineer of this project. You have the most context and stake in this decision. Do you have a preference on the two proposals?” “I like the second one because ...”, the engineer explained. “Great, now we have a decision!” We adjourned the meeting happily. The moral of the story: After the due diligence of analyzing a problem and possible solutions (Dive Deep); after the due care of collecting feedbacks from relevant stakeholders (Are Right, A Lot), the lead engineer of the problem solving needs to : (1) be willing to make a decision to get things going - Bias for Action (2) have the perseverance to get the problem solved - Deliver Results (3) have the courage of owning the consequences of that decision - Ownership Don't rely on others to make decisions for you. It is ok you make the wrong decisions now and then, that is life. You learn from it and grow one way or another, as long you put in the right effort. Making decisions implies taking risks. When you get into a car, you are taking a nontrivial risk, wether you acknowledge that or not. But not making a decision, is often the worst decision. “I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” ― Henry David Thoreau, Walden