[BeetleB]

> if the sender has enough decision power to move forward with a default action without confirmation, then the email is simply a polite notice to someone above in the command chain, isn’t it?

In one team I did this all the time even though I didn't have the decision power. I did it to force people to respond.

Prior to my adopting this strategy, I'd send an email saying "We need a decision about this by X", and the most common response was ... sorry, there wasn't any! The majority of times people didn't respond, and I was stuck.

So I had to switch to "This is needed by X. I'm going to go ahead with Y, but let me know if you have other ideas."

And I would ensure that Y was a poor solution. I would get really rapid responses saying "Don't do Y! Do Z!"

Even though I've moved to other teams, I often use this technique (except if the team acts in good faith, my solution Y is actually my best attempt at solving it).

[vulcan01]

> And I would ensure that Y was a poor solution.

How do you ensure people don't think you're not good at your job, if you continually propose poor solutions? Since you're emailing other teams here, they probably(?) don't get to work with you day-to-day to realize you're doing this on purpose.

Also, what's the point of Y being a poor solution? Even if the other team isn't very responsive, can't you always propose your

> best attempt at solving it

such that even if they don't respond, you can implement a decent solution?

[BeetleB]

> How do you ensure people don't think you're not good at your job

Great point. In the beginning, it was fine because I was new and didn't have domain knowledge. As time went by, I had decided I hate the team/job and I need to find a new job anyway.

> Also, what's the point of Y being a poor solution?

In this scenario, I was never in a point of knowing if my good solution was good enough. My best attempt may be something that would get me 80-90% of the way but needed small modifications.

People speed reading my email might not see the nuance and think I already had the correct approach, and wouldn't respond. That risks going forth with a problematic solution. If, however, you say something that is clearly wrong, people are quick to respond.

More concisely, if I go with my best approach, and no one responds, I still don't know if my approach is correct or not. The point of the email is I need their feedback. So I have to set up the situation to virtually guarantee I get their feedback.

(Another approach I would do is list 3 options I was thinking of, and make the default one a poor one - at least this way they know I'm capable of thinking up good solutions but haven't developed judgement yet).

> such that even if they don't respond, you can implement a decent solution?

The goal is to elicit a response. If I say clearly "I need a response", then I'm not going to get it.

Again, do this only with problematic teams. This isn't a guide for normal work. For normally functioning teams, I would recommend going with the best approach and making that the clear default.

[1718627440]

This is called blackmail. It might fit the work culture in your company, but it certainly ain't polite.

[BeetleB]

Consistently not replying when you say "I need this information by X" is also impolite.

Crappy teams lead to crappy strategies.

Incidentally, people are reading too much into this. No one got upset at me for doing this. They knew I was trying to solve a problem. And they knew the bottleneck was themselves.