alt Hacker News> if the sender has enough decision power to move forward with a default action without confirmation, then the email is simply a polite notice to someone above in the command chain, isn’t it?
In one team I did this all the time even though I didn't have the decision power. I did it to force people to respond.
Prior to my adopting this strategy, I'd send an email saying "We need a decision about this by X", and the most common response was ... sorry, there wasn't any! The majority of times people didn't respond, and I was stuck.
So I had to switch to "This is needed by X. I'm going to go ahead with Y, but let me know if you have other ideas."
And I would ensure that Y was a poor solution. I would get really rapid responses saying "Don't do Y! Do Z!"
Even though I've moved to other teams, I often use this technique (except if the team acts in good faith, my solution Y is actually my best attempt at solving it).
> And I would ensure that Y was a poor solution.
How do you ensure people don't think you're not good at your job, if you continually propose poor solutions? Since you're emailing other teams here, they probably(?) don't get to work with you day-to-day to realize you're doing this on purpose.
Also, what's the point of Y being a poor solution? Even if the other team isn't very responsive, can't you always propose your
> best attempt at solving it
such that even if they don't respond, you can implement a decent solution?