Donovan: I really liked your bike-shedding and yak-shaving stories. I’ve had a few of those in my life. Like my manager not trusting me to buy a TI-84 calculator at a reasonable price at a retail store. She went to the wholesale store to buy it for $20 less, totally forgetting that her effective wage is much more than $20 an hour.
I’m building a pandemic simulator for high school students to roleplay politicians making decisions on pandemic interventions. My software developer and I have been working well together (we have about three projects under our belt). But building our “quarantine” feature has been a challenge. There are a few bugs that aren’t going away — and he is going off in the wrong direction to fix them (I understand the math better than he does). I don’t want to jump into his expertise, but I’m going to have to put my foot down soon.
For projects like the Tilley Hall, there needs to be a reasonable amount of discussion and debate. I was only 10 years old at the time, but I think this happened and was not unduly extended. The problem was personal identity the various players put into their proposal.
About 10 years ago, my current town (Brooks) built a new hockey arena. Lots of contrary opinions on how to do this; design discussions went two years with no decision. Eventually one the leaders had to start acting like a dictator. He got it built. Very nice facility and it serves our community quite well. It should last another 40 years. But today, the design still has its critics ready to vocalize their objections to those who will listen. At least the people around the Tilley Hall in 1970 decided to quit bitching.
Building the TDG is a good forum to teach this consensual decision making, which could spill into other facets of group decisions.
If the big players think a bike shed is a good idea, let the main supporter design it, within budget. If he needs more money, let him come to the group with his request. This decision, given the scope of the entire project, should take no more than 10 minutes of the group’s time.
