Ask HN: How do you reverse committee-based decision making in scaling orgs?

3 points by nvdnadj92 3 years ago | 2 comments

As an organization grows, new stakeholders tack on additional processes to account for secondary concerns. When it comes to cross-team decision making, the decision maker is no longer anyone in the group but instead an executive with little context. As a result, I see "committees" being formed where the executive delegates the responsibility to a group of subject matter experts, who can advise and green light projects. This has been a huge bureaucratic bottleneck at the company, and reduces the accountability individuals have to make sure things get done or implemented.

What are some solutions you've seen implemented (at companies that have >250 engineers) to minimize the amount of "death by committee" decision-making an organization does?

teledyn 3 years ago |

"When deciding by committee Here's a useful rule of thumb: Talents make a difference, And follies make a sum!"

- Piet Hein, "Grooks"

al_borland 3 years ago |

The solutions I’ve seen haven’t solved anything, but rather created additional layers of bureaucracy.