[analog31]

Ha ha, you just committed... to thinking about it. If you're the only person in the room who requires this kind of thinking, then you just committed to all of the tasks. Moreover, you've also tacitly accepted the burden of proof.

I've been there, which is why your comment caught my eye. I learned some strategies for dealing with the issue, but of course that learning came with age and stature within the organization, so YMMV. The best is to get agreement that analysis is needed, but delegate it if possible. Some examples of better responses:

* This needs some quantitative thinking before we commit

* One of the engineers can do an analysis

* I could mentor somebody on how to do this kind of analysis

[zmgsabst]

“That’s an interesting idea! — why don’t you write up a quick wiki entry and we can review it after standup/at the next meeting?”

I see several of us have played that game over the years.

To be fair, sometimes the answer was that I was being grumpy and it was a great idea — which I learned by reading the wiki entry. And the junior engineer learned to sell their idea in writing. Which means even when you “lose”, you still win at being a good senior engineer.

[8n4vidtmkvmk]

Wiki entry. Interesting. We write Google Docs for everything. Never thought of using wiki for researchy/planning stuff. Wiki is for "We've thought about this, and this is everything we know"

Docs are for "This is what I'm planning. Here are our options. Add your comments to the sidebar". Once you've ironed out the kinks and implemented it and wait a few years for it to start slipping from your collective minds then you cobble together the remnants into a wiki.