Rough Consensus enables forward progress

When faced with a situation that does not have an obvious solution, the default tendency is often to work toward consensus—full agreement by everyone. But in situations of ambiguity or where different tradeoffs conflict, this can lead to gridlock. Instead of waiting for consensus (everyone agrees), forward progress can be achieved by working toward rough consensus—everyone can live with the proposed course of action.

Once everyone can live with a given solution, you've reached rough consensus, even if there are outstanding objections.^[1]

Practically, this means that it's “okay to go ahead with a solution that may not look like the best choice for everyone or even the majority.”^[2] But it is important to first seek out and address all fundamental flaws before implementing a proposed solution. Fundamental flaws are critical issues that could jeopardize the success of the proposed solution. These are different from “not the best choice” concerns. People will disagree on what may be the best solution, but only when concerns pertain to fundamental flaws should they be permitted to halt the implementation of a solution.

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