I have been in project meetings where the responsibility for a decision sat with me, but the clearest understanding of the problem sat with someone else.
Sometimes it was an architect who could see a consequence I had missed. Sometimes it was a business analyst who understood what the client was really asking for. At other times, it was a team lead who knew, far better than I did, what the team could realistically absorb.
I wish I could say that I always recognized this immediately. Seniority can create a quiet pressure to have the answer, particularly when everyone in the room is waiting for you to speak.
What I have gradually learned is that being accountable for a decision does not require every useful part of that decision to come from me.
There is a difference between asking people for their views and making them feel that those views could genuinely change the outcome. Teams usually sense when a discussion is still open and when a decision has already been made but is being presented as a consultation.
The more difficult habit is to remain open for a little longer. To ask one more question. To let the person closest to the work explain what we may not yet understand. And when their thinking improves the decision, to make sure the recognition stays with them.
The accountability may still sit with the project leader. The insight does not always have to.
How do you make it easier for expertise to travel upward and influence a project decision?
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