Main idea

Meeting minutes call for a conclusion. A steering-committee slide calls for a message. A ticket calls for an action. None of these formats has room for a problem that boils down to "both sides are right and they don't fit together".

A contradiction is uncomfortable, and a product team's working formats are built to get rid of it: each one rewards the sentence that settles or reconciles. Nobody wants to bring an open disagreement to a steering committee; so it is made to disappear before the meeting.

Why it matters

This places the cause of smoothing outside people: it is not a lack of rigor but pressure exerted by the formats. Correcting it requires a format where the contradiction has a legitimate place, not a reminder to be vigilant.

Nuances and limits

These formats are not bad: a decision does have to be made eventually. The problem is that they demand the conclusion before the material allows it.

Open questions

• What would a steering-committee slide look like if its message were an unsettled contradiction?