Domain experts excel at making decisions in their domains. They have the knowledge required to make well-informed decisions with greater efficiency, and the skills to compare options, weigh risks, and make tradeoffs.
Product development teams which consistently drive customer and business value avoid consensus seeking. In these teams, product managers are responsible for product decisions. Engineers are responsible for engineering decisions, and designers for design decisions.
Seeking Consensus Leads to Mediocrity
High performing product development teams build, learn, and iterate quickly. Consensus seeking teams are slow. More conversations are required to reach agreement, and they become even slower with more people.
Seeking consensus leads to mediocre outcomes which fail to drive customer and business value. Instead of trusting the most knowledgeable and skilled person to make the decision, the team has prioritised reaching agreement.
In high performing football teams, a quarterback doesn't play in the defensive line. If they did, the difference in skill level would be quite evident and the other team would dominate the exchange. This is the most likely outcome when amateurs compete against experts. Put simply, teams which seek consensus aren't giving themselves the best chance of succeeding.
Lack of Accountability in Consensus Seeking Teams
Product managers, engineers, and designers should be accountable for decisions they made in their respective domains. But when teams seek consensus everyone is accountable for every decision.
This lack of accountability affects the individual psyche and team dynamic. It's difficult for team members to learn from the outcomes of a decision in their domains, and they become less motivated. Managers also struggle to coach their direct reports, as only the team's decision making can be analysed.
Seeking Consensus is not Collaboration
Collaboration is active listening, open communication, organisation, mutual respect, and much more. Product, engineering, and design must collaborate, with a shared focus on business objectives and customer experience. To ensure solutions are feasible, viable, usable, and create value for the customer and business.
Teams who collaborate well leverage each other's strengths to produce the best possible outcome. Individuals who collaborate well have humility. They know when a problem is outside their domain of expertise. They know when someone else possesses the knowledge and skills to make a well informed decision, and they trust them to get the job done.
When Designers Should Seek Consensus
Maybe the title should be 'Avoid Consensus Seeking in Multidisciplinary Teams'. Because designers should seek consensus with other designers. To ensure a seamless experience for customers across different parts of the product or service, and to help the team establish a unified design vision.
Of course, don't seek consensus with the design team for every decision. Designers should have the high-level context they need to ensure decisions they make independently align with the team’s vision.
The Realities of Product Development
Writing this is a good way to vent and figure out my own thoughts, but I also believe this way of thinking is too rigid. In reality, product development is messy and designers aren’t always the ones making design decisions. It's the design team's responsibility to ensure their product and engineering partners have the context they need to make informed design decisions. Which are consistent with those made elsewhere in the product or service.
If the design system components are well documented, with specifications and the intended usage clearly defined. Engineers are more likely to make a design decision in line with those of the designer. If the design principles are well documented, product managers are more likely to write copy which is on-brand and make the right design tradeoffs.
Conclusion
The aim isn't to exclude people from making decisions, it's to ensure your team has the best chance of succeeding.
Designers shouldn't isolate themselves or their work, because they're responsible for the team’s design decisions. A good design process is an open design process. Where the designer invites people with diverse backgrounds and life experiences into the design process. To hear their stories, foster empathy, gather insights, and avoid biases.
Avoid consensus seeking and leverage each individual's unique strengths. Trust the domain expert, the one who possesses the knowledge and skills to excel at decision making in their domain.