Comparison
Analysis paralysisvsTwo-way door
Analysis paralysis
the decision has been in review for six weeks, and the options have not changed since week two.
Deliberation continuing past the point where more of it changes the answer. It is common where the cost of being wrong feels high and the cost of delay is invisible, which describes most architecture decisions in large organisations. The unlock is usually to establish reversibility: if the decision is a two-way door, decide now, and if it is not, say what specific information would end the analysis and go get that.
Full entry →Two-way door
you argued for a week about a library you could have swapped out in an afternoon.
A decision you can walk back cheaply if it turns out wrong. Most decisions are these, and treating them as if they were not is the most common way engineering organisations become slow. The correct handling is to decide quickly, at the lowest sensible level, and spend the saved deliberation on the small number of decisions that are actually one-way.
Full entry →