From the Signal vs. Noise blog:
“There’s a lot of talk about change being hard, but sometimes it’s harder to keep your mind than change your mind.”
I couldn’t agree more. I’ve seen the fact that a development team is working in an “agile” environment used as an excuse for not making a decision so many times, it’s crazy. The argument usually goes along these lines: “It’s impossible to know what the right decision is, so let’s just make any old decision. We can always change our minds later. After all, we’re ‘agile’.”
I just want to scream when this happens — just because you use an Agile development process is not an excuse for being lazy in your decision making. Think about the problem, discuss it, mull it over, sleep on it, and start all over again if you need to. But be confident, when you have made your decision, that it’s the right decision.
Yes, you may need to change the decision later, when circumstances change or new information comes along ; but at least start out with confidence, and maintain that confidence until you find a compelling reason to change course.