[crdoconnor]

I don't know that I fully agree with you. I've seen some "deadlock breaking" where necessary discussions were cut short by, like, 5 or 10 minutes and the resulting "compromise" architectural decisions ended up being disastrous.

I've also seen team leads set agendas and drive discussion in such a way as to bury important issues that would otherwise come out while wasting time on minutiae.

In contrast I've never really seen one of these fabled technical arguments over tabs vs. spaces that lasted 4 hours and wasted everybody's time. If nothing else, sheer boredom prevents discussions from going on longer than they have to.

[jdmichal]

A "decider" is not supposed to be a "compromiser". That's just design-by-committee with a benevolent dictator.

[crdoconnor]

That's typically what you get when you have a team lead who doesn't have a full view into everything that is going on (which is the norm).