First agree on the tradeoffs | Jade Rubick - Engineering Leadership

Teams often stall because people argue from different mental models-arguers, askees, first-come-the-first-served, and perfectionists-all pulling in opposite directions. The piece shows that the shortcut is to stop fighting over positions and instead force the group to surface the real trade-offs between time, scope, and risk.

The recommended workflow starts with divergent thinking: force the group to produce at least three viable approaches, even if they feel premature. Once the ideas exist, the facilitator leads a convergent phase where each option's trade-offs are listed-short-term speed versus long-term completeness, risk versus confidence, and so on. The crucial step is to get explicit agreement on those trade-offs before any decision is made.

With shared trade-offs in hand, the decision-maker-whether it's the tech lead, architect, or a designated owner-can choose the option that best fits the constraints. If the decision-maker isn't obvious, the facilitator asks who knows the problem best or who carries the business context and assigns the call. The decision is then recorded publicly along with the trade-off rationale.

When teams adopt this reality-first approach they stop looping on the same arguments, surface better solutions, and can often deliver projects up to 50% smaller, effectively doubling velocity without extra effort. The result is clearer alignment, faster execution, and fewer wasted meetings.