Decision Rules: One Person Decides After Discussion

One person Decides After Discussion IconThe One Person Decides After Discussion rule means a decision maker involves other people to gather more insights before making a decision. For example a Product Owner facilitates a discussion with stakeholders about what the next most valuable items on the Product Backlog should be. The Product Owner asks for valuable input ideas, data, concerns and thoughts. When enough discussion has taken place the Product Owner makes the final decision of what items should go on top of the Product Backlog.  

The One Person Decides After Discussion rule engages people in the decision-making process while one person maintains control over the decision. The decision maker has access, authority, resources, and credibility to act on what they decide while they also leverage the collective intelligence and experience from a group of people to increase their understanding. It avoids the ‘design by committee’ and speeds up decisions. 

When to Use the One Person Decides After Discussion Rule?

The One Person Decides After Discussion rule is good for impactful decisions and the decision maker wants to leverage the collective intelligence and experiences of the group to make a better-informed decision. An example of using this decision rule is when the Product Owner is deciding on the order of Product Backlog items and what the team should pursue next. 

Example Techniques

Focus on facilitation principles over techniques. Open-ended questioning to gather ideas. (Techniques for unanimous agreement and majority vote can be used to gauge opinion.)

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Scrum Teams need to make decisions all the time. Helping teams reach a decision effectively, and gaining necessary buy-in from all team members can be challenging, especially when team members are unclear on who has the final say in making it. Understanding the decision rule, how a decision is made and whose input is required, is necessary because ambiguity in the decision process causes confusion and frustration.