Coordinate and act
The revert and "rough consensus."
Make changes easy to undo, and decide by rough agreement
Make actions cheaply reversible and decide on broad agreement rather than unanimity, so reversible calls move fast.
Borrowed from the Internet Engineering Task Force, whose "rough consensus" standard is described in RFC 7282, and the open-source practice of making changes easy to undo. Read the original source.
Ongoing habit · Minutes to start · Anyone on the team can start it
Try this first
Ask two questions. Can we undo this easily, and is there broad agreement with no strong objection. Yes to both, move.
Use it when
Fear of mistakes is freezing action, or unanimity is being demanded.
Skip it when
Neither habit applies to irreversible or high-stakes decisions, which need fuller agreement. The whole thing rests on the action being reversible.
How to introduce it
Two open-source habits that work together. Make actions cheaply reversible, because a change you can undo does not need a heavy approval. And decide by rough consensus, acting on broad agreement with no strong sustained objection instead of waiting for everyone or counting votes.
How to show up
Help the team judge honestly what is reversible and what is not, and read rough consensus for what it is. Broad agreement, not the silence of someone who gave up. Telling a resolved objection from an unheard one is the skill.
How long it takes
No setup. It's a way of making decisions.
What makes it hard
Judging reversibility honestly is the crux, because treating an irreversible action as reversible is how fast decisions cause real damage. And rough consensus can hide a suppressed objection, so make sure no strong objection means people were heard.
What it looks like when it's working
Reversible calls move fast on broad agreement and irreversible ones slow down. Everything waiting for full agreement, or everything moving fast regardless, means nobody is making the judgment.
How long until it sticks
Expect several decisions before judging reversibility and reading rough consensus become reliable.
How you know it stuck
The team moves fast on what it can undo and slows for what it cannot.
The idea behind it
When you can undo a decision cheaply you can afford to make it fast. Insisting on unanimity stalls everything.
Where it comes from
Open-source collaboration. Make actions cheaply reversible so people can move fast, and decide by rough consensus. A bad change can be cheaply undone (the revert), and decisions aim for rough consensus rather than unanimity or vote-counting.