Last Friday was the CTO Breakfast, a monthly gathering of technologists in the Provo-Salt Lake City area that I’ve convened for almost 20 years. Like IIW, CTO Breakfast has no pre-planned agenda. The discussion is freewheeling and active. We have just two rules: (1) no politics and (2) one conversation at a time. Today’s topics included LoRaWAN, Helium network, IoT, hiring entry-level software developers, Carrier-Grade NATs, and commercial real estate. The conversation goes where it goes, but is always interesting and worthwhile.
When we built the University API at BYU, we used decentralized decision making to make key architecture, governance, and implementation decisions. Rather than a few architects deciding everything, we had many meetings, with dozens of people in each, over the course of a year hammering out the design.
What all of these have in common is decentralized decision making by a group of people that results in learning, consensus, and, if all goes well, action. The conversation at IIW, CTO Breakfast, and BYU isn’t the result a few smart people deciding what the group needed to hear and then arranging meetings to push it at them. Instead, the group decides. Empowering the group to make decisions about the very nature and direction of the conversation requires trust and trust always implies vulnerability. But I’ve become convinced that it’s really the best way to achieve real consensus and make progress in heterogeneous groups. Thanks Kaliya!