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Our organisation currently consists of 10 developers, I am one of the senior developers there.

We recently held a meeting, as one of the developers wanted to suggest using a different framework to what we are using now.

The discussion itself became very heated - with each developer trying to put across their opinion as to why their preferred framework is better than what someone else is suggesting.

The meeting was not conclusive in the sense that we did not reach any agreement and have decided to have a follow up meeting next week.

What is the best way to handle these discussions? Inevitability every developer will favour their own preferred framework and even if you narrow it down to 2/3 options, it is likely that no one option will hold a majority.

Should a senior developer make a decision on behalf of the team? Should these discussions be held with developers on an individual basis as opposed to a team discussion?

marked as duplicate by gnat, Kilian Foth, user40980, Dan Pichelman, GlenH7 Mar 13 '15 at 19:45



Who is accountable?

There should be one person who is the person accountable for a given project/task. They are the person with their head on the block should it fail. Sometimes that is an architect. Sometimes it's a team lead. Sometimes it's a manager. Sometimes it's just some developer.

But that one person gets to make the final call. And they're the one who gets to suffer if they make a bad one.

It sounds as though you don't have anyone who is accountable. I would encourage you to go to your boss, and make them do it. If they won't, see if they'll at least designate someone as being the accountable one. If they won't even do that, then it's up to your team to pick someone, somehow. I recommend Programmer Thunderdome.

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    Along with accountability is identifying the criteria for the framework. – JeffO Mar 12 '15 at 23:53
  • Also be sure they're really going to be accountable when their new ideas don't work. – user1248 Mar 23 '15 at 9:46
  • this sounds like the opposite of the agile mindset of shared ownership of the code. in companies like facebook, even when there's thousands of developers, they all own the code together. it's not "someone else's problem" and you don't do something half-assed because "it's not my head on the line if it fails". I think this is a very divisive mindset that promotes covering your ass instead of collaborating. – sara Mar 29 '16 at 12:05
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    @kai - You seriously think people aren't held accountable for doing their work at Facebook? When nobody is responsible, it's always someone else's problem. – Telastyn Mar 29 '16 at 13:08
  • it's not that nobody is responsible. EVERYONE is responsible. the point is to build a culture where everyone owns and feels responsibility for every line of code in the code base. if a problem arises or a bug is found, the focus is not on finding a scapegoat to blame and shun, but in finding out what went wrong, and learning from the experience. this does NOT mean that people can slack off and do whatever they want with no repercussions. it's focusing on solving problems rather than keeping your back clear. – sara Mar 29 '16 at 13:56
