Your team was using the participative decision-making process. This is evident in how each team member contributed to the discussion and offered solutions.

It allows team members to brainstorm for a solution and interact with different solutions to create an ideal resolution to the implementation challenge.

The disadvantages are that team members may not be comfortable offering their opinions on the technology; some may be confrontational, while others may evade confrontation and side with the majority.

John’s opinion on the installation was immediately dismissed and never referred to again in the discussion, so he may feel his opinion isn’t valuable.

You could invite John back into the discussion by asking what his opinion of the other solutions is. John may need some encouragement to participate in the discussion after his suggestion had been eliminated.

Fred did a good job listening to the other solutions and then offering a combination of all the proposals. Team members who fall into the sage category are often great at analyzing problems and then creating a solution from what others have proposed.

Fred’s solution is probably the wisest, as it addresses the bulk of the machines to be delivered, the process of installing and configuring the operating systems, and the desire to use imaging software.

A tiered deliverable is ideal in this situation due to the number of PCs involved. It would be practically impossible to deliver all of the workstations in one step. By delivering the PCs over several weekends or after hours, production is not interrupted and the network traffic will be minimal for the network push of the disk image.