Making Decisions as a Team

For successful team decision making you must first ensure all team members are well-informed, meaning everyone has a clear understanding of the action or idea being proposed and why. It is also important that everyone has a voice when arriving at a decision. Once your team has a good understanding of the issue at hand, you may want to consider a voting strategy to help confirm that your team has reached a consensus on a proposed plan or idea within a reasonable time. A few voting methods are described below but keep in mind that the following list is meant to be illustrative and not exhaustive.

Polling

If the meeting is taking place remotely, you can utilize polling software available in the remote meeting platform to acquire feedback from all team members. If the meeting is taking place in person, you can use the Roman voting technique, where members cast their votes using hand gestures. In this case, thumbs up indicates you support the idea, and thumbs down means that you have concerns and do not want to move forward with this idea. A sideways thumb can be used when you are willing to move forward with the idea without any strong reservations or preferences, hence a neutral state.

A team may also vocalize or signal their preference in a different manner if they are unable to do so physically.

Roman Voting Technique Infographic (.pdf)

Fist to Five Voting

Deciding on an action can be even more challenging if consensus is to be achieved by a simple yes or no response. Fist to Five Voting is a technique that can be used to gauge and come to a consensus on a topic where a decision needs to be made during a team meeting.

The Fist to Five voting technique is one of the methods used by Agile Teams for decision-making. The process is as follows: the meeting Chair or Facilitator asks team members to show their level of agreement with the statement presented for decision-making by holding up a closed fist if they disagree or, depending on their level of agreement with the statement, the corresponding number of fingers. A team member may also vocalize or signal their preference in a different manner if they are unable to do so physically. 

The image below illustrates the definitions for each level. A close fist suggests you are blocking the consensus, one finger means you strongly disagree, three fingers means you are not certain but are willing to go along with the team, and five means you strongly support the decision and might even champion it. If anyone in the team presents a number less than three fingers, the decision must be deferred for further discussion for concerns to be addressed before voting on the idea or proposal again.

Fist to Five Voting Image Infographic (.pdf)