I was leading a work group designing a new software. I tried to reach consensus, so everybody in the group would be satisfied with our decisions. But it didn’t work. Everybody was arguing even on simple questions and didn’t listen to arguments of others. Votings didn’t help too, because the minority was rising the same questions again and again, trying to convince others to join them and then re-vote. And nobody was satisfied. We were wasting time. But when I said that now I only listen to others and make decisions on my own, everybody was ok with that. Our meetings became productive. So, I don’t believe consensus is possible.
I was leading a work group designing a new software. I tried to reach consensus, so everybody in the group would be satisfied with our decisions. But it didn’t work. Everybody was arguing even on simple questions and didn’t listen to arguments of others. Votings didn’t help too, because the minority was rising the same questions again and again, trying to convince others to join them and then re-vote. And nobody was satisfied. We were wasting time. But when I said that now I only listen to others and make decisions on my own, everybody was ok with that. Our meetings became productive. So, I don’t believe consensus is possible.
Consensus is really a function of group size.
I was in a group, there were 8 members we went back an forth for months to try come to decisions, it was not a great time and nothing was achieved.
Consensus is probably possible in groups of around 4-5