The Importance of Forming opinions in the Engineering Industry

Just 1 person saying and everyone agreeing to it is not the best way to make decisions!

Intro

We are making so many decisions every day in our great engineering industry. A lot of these decisions are team decisions.

To effectively make them, it’s important to have discussions that are as efficient as possible. Just 1 person saying what’s the best way to do it, would often not provide the best outcomes.

The best way to do it is that every person provides their opinion and a suggestion → then we swiftly decide based on set parameters, what is the best way to go.

And remember, even if “your opinion” has not been accepted, you’ve contributed to the discussion with your view. Which is huge. So don’t feel bad about it. The concept of disagree and commit is very powerful → make sure to do that.

I have asked Abhinav Yadav, a seasoned Engineering Leader and a Staff Engineering Manager, to tell us a bit about his experience of why forming opinions is so very important!

We are exchanging a LOT of opinions in our day-to-day work

A lot of the development work involves debating ideas, designs, priorities and options. These can be team discussions about technology, tech debt or team norms. These could also be cross-functional conversations with your Product Manager or the Designer.

All these discussions are fruitful only if everyone has some opinion to share on the topic. This might seem odd early in your career, but can become a hindrance to your career growth if you don’t address it.

Let’s take a look at what it is, why it is important and what to avoid.

Every opinion matter

Most teams want to have a broad agreement and make sure everyone feels comfortable with the end decision. In order to come to that ‘broadly acceptable’ decision, the team needs to have a debate. And that debate is only possible if everyone comes to that debate with some opinions formed.

Early in my career, it was not clear what opinion a junior developer could share. In fact, most of us would just listen in and didn’t have much to contribute. But as we noticed the more experienced developers in the room, it quickly became clear that they had put in some thought before coming into meetings.

As I reflected back, one template was clear. They shared their opinions in the form of <I think this> because <of some supporting evidence>. This was a simple way to articulate their opinions about a topic and helped others to either support or oppose their viewpoint.

Another mistake is to think about team decisions as right or wrong. A team that can have constructive debates can weigh in the options, assess the risk involved and dilute any assumptions.

Why is it important?

With more experience, it became clear to me that core decisions on the team are made from discussions.

You might not be part of all the discussions, but active participation in debates and sharing thoughtful opinions is crucial to your career growth. The ability to contribute opinions demonstrates one's capacity to shape discussions and make meaningful contributions to the team.

Soon, you’ll be able to not only present your opinions but also hold meaningful discussions. Long term, you’ll be trusted to own outcomes from these discussions.

It’s hard to find success as an engineer without active contributions to team discussions.

How do you develop it?