Climbing the Decision Tree: Reaching High Quality Team Decisions

When teams "go agile," members of the whole team take on greater responsibility for thinking and deciding as a unit. Though individual team members may know how to make great individual decisions, few people bring the skills or perspective needed to make high quality decisions as a group. Teams need to plan for all elements of high quality team decisions, balancing technical quality, commitment to implementation, efficiency, and opportunities for team development. Rather than relying solely on a consensus model, an effective team will have a repertoire of decision-making methods and select the best approach for their decisions before they face each choice point. Diana Larsen introduces a decision tree model for teams and covers the what, who, when, where, why, and how of team decision-making.