The Decision Buy-In Algorithm
Making large, important technical decisions is a critical aspect of a software engineer's role. With the wide impact these decisions can have, it is essential to make the correct decision. Even more vital is ensuring the decision is made and communicated in a way that the team members impacted by it trust and buy-in to the decision. Otherwise, even the best decisions will never realize their full potential when executed.
This case study examines how Comcast has employed the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), a decision-making framework developed in the 1970s, and adapted it for making technical and non-technical decisions both large and small. We will cover the key aspects that have made it successful for engineering teams, what we learned from our early mistakes, signs that the decision-making process you use is working effectively, and how you can easily leverage the AHP for your decisions.
About Christopher Lorenzo
Chris has worked at Comcast since 2007 – currently as a Distinguished Engineer. He enjoys building/motivating teams and ramping up new projects including Xfinity Home and Xfinity xFi using the latest patterns and web primitives. Outside of Comcast I am a Google Developer Expert in Web Technologies and I love hiking and chilling on the beach.
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About John Riviello
John Riviello created his first hypertext document on the Internet in 1996 and has been obsessed with building for the web ever since. He spends his days as Engineering Fellow and Lead Frontend Developer at Comcast, where he works on the Xfinity customer websites and web applications. He is a Google Developer Expert in Web Technologies and
the author of the LinkedIn Learning course “CSS to Sass: Converting an Existing Site.” In his free time, he prefers surfing waves over surfing the Internet.