Don’t you just hate when people dither and don’t deliver things when they’re supposed to? Or when they just sit on the fence and don’t make decisions?
Well, to be honest I’m not sure either way
I absolutely do! But then there’s occasions when I don’t…
Certainly my freelancing experience - and that of some of my friends who freelance in other disciplines - is that it can be very frustrating when potential clients postpone decisions. Even when I was trying to get back into perm roles, there were some potential employers who seemed incapable of using the magic “D” word.
And I can think of a situation in a previous life where a new job role was being proposed which I really, really wanted to get into, but the management delayed greenlighting it for possibly three or four years for a range of different reasons. In that time, the people who wanted that job doing were able to cast around for an external candidate and essentially short-list for the role before it even got advertised; then when I threw my hat into the ring they were surprised (first, that I’d even done it, because I wasn’t on their radar; and second, because I had a really good grasp of what the job entailed) but had virtually set their hearts on the external candidate and went with them instead.
If I’d got that job, I probably wouldn’t be sat here now as a tester; OTOH, I might have been either heavily involved in Brexit work for HMG or I might have been contemplating the life of the ex-pat, depending on how the past ten years had gone…
Worse than sitting on the fence is being unable to stand by a decision, I currently work with a product owner who in design will insist in one approach, and then when development claim “too difficult” he folds.
I know call him “suit” as he folds like a cheap suit
Yes. Bad things can happen when a decision is delayed, and not standing by it can be worse. On the other hand, when delaying a decision is not a problem, the additional time may allow for more information or events, to make a better decision. And then some choices aren’t worth thinking about very much. The trick is telling the difference.