breckandbricks.info

Consensus is important when everybody’s got to give 110 percent to make the decision work. Consensus might be preferred, for example, if a team is supposed to reduce new product design-to-market time by 60 percent, reorganize a department’s physical layout of maximum efficiency, or set objectives for the next fiscal year.

Majority Vote: This is often the most practical way to make a decision, especially when time is short, the decision isn’t critical. And you don’t need universal agreement.

For example, a team may decide by majority vote how to prioritize current projects of budget expenditure, which word processing or spreadsheet program to adopt, how long to retain hard-copy files before placing them in an archive facility, and what vacation and shift schedules team members will follow for the next work period.

Team appointment: This is the designated-driver version of decisions. The team nominates one person who’ll be responsible for calling the shots. Choosing the appointee will require a consensus of majority decision, of course, but once that’s out of the way, the appointee can move faster than the group.

An appointee may be chosen to pick the location for an offsite conference, arrange for a guest speaker at the monthly team pep rally, do a preliminary evaluation of new hardware, software, of equipment that the department might buy, negotiate with vendors to buy standard materials, parts, and support services up to specified amount, or hire a freelance graphic artist to illustrate a new product brochure.