Making simple decisions can counter-intuitively be one of the most difficult things to accomplish on a team.

Parkinson’s Law of Triviality (you probably know it by the term “bike-shedding”) famously states:

The time spent on any item of the agenda will be in inverse proportion to the sum [of money] involved.

Generalized, what this is saying is that simple decisions are often harder to get consensus on. This makes sense, if you think about it. When a proposed solution is complex and difficult to understand, the assumption is that a lot of thought was put into this proposal, and people are just plain less likely to have enough knowledge or context to provide useful feedback. When you deal with a simple problem it’s a lot easier to have an opinion, and want to contribute to the discussion.

One thing we noticed when dealing with these discussions, oftentimes (but not always), objections, modifications, or commentary on these simple discussions tended towards trivialities.

Imagine you’re discussing what to have for dinner:

1. Mary proposes having Indian.
2. Steve doesn’t like butter chicken.
3. Joe is OK with Indian, but would probably prefer Chinese.
4. Jane doesn’t like Chinese. He would like to have a burger.
5. Mary hates burgers.

Simple decisions often turn into these meandering conversations, where the conversation tend to go in a million directions. In this case, however, even though there was a lot of discussion, everyone was fundamentally OK with the idea of Indian food for dinner. It might not be their first choice, but for simple decisions like this, finding something everyone is at least OK with quickly is far more effective than trying to reach everyone’s ideal.

Fist of Fives

Fist of Five is a method to help make simple decisions (where the decision can be expressed as a simple yes / no proposal) among medium-sized groups. Everyone raises between 1 and 5 fingers simultaneously (think of it like a mass game of Rock-Paper-Scissors), with each count of fingers representing their feelings towards the proposal:

• 1 finger - I have serious problems with this proposal. I cannot buy into this.
• 2 fingers - I have concerns with some aspects of this proposal that I would like discussion on prior to this being accepted.
• 3 fingers - I have some concerns with this, but I can get behind it.
• 4 fingers - I’m good with this proposal.
• 5 fingers - I love this proposal and will champion it.

We take a fist of five whenever a proposal is made - it allows us to quickly move past issues that everyone is OK with and focus on the discussions that actually require some consensus building.

• If the response to the proposal is universally 3 or above, we do it - end of discussion.
• If the response to the proposal has a single 1, that person must be convinced or an alternate proposal must be made.
• If the response to the proposal has 2s, discussion should take place, but something widely agreed on by the team with a single 2 can still go through.

Fist of fives are a really quick way to establish and build consensus, because it gives people the freedom to express that they have some reservations while still being able to get behind the idea. Consensus is often confused with unanimity for exactly this reason - when people are forced into a flat “yes / no”, things get bogged down and there’s always an effort to include everyone’s opinions at all cost - leading to “design by committee” type behaviors.

I really recommend trying out Fist of Fives with your team. It can seem awkward at first but can be really effective once you get into the habit.