As an engineer, you will often find yourself in meetings where decisions are made. All sorts of meetings and all sorts of decisions. A document review, a roadmap review, a sprint planning or ideation session. Decisions are made all the time by the team and you should be able to engage and influence them regardless of your level.

Too many engineers will simply observe the discussion without really engaging. Even when they are prompted, they will say that they don't have an opinion or they will defer to someone else to make the call.

But here's a thing. No one knows the perfect solution and there are also no obvious ones. Otherwise we wouldn't be having this discussion in the first place.

So how can you influence the outcome? One way is to help clarify the decision. Ask questions like "What assumptions are we making?" or "What tradeoffs are we making?". You can also help understand what's a risk by asking a question like "What happens if we are wrong?". You can also help reduce scope with a question such as "Is there anything that we can remove from this proposal?".

By asking questions, you can influence the decision process without knowing all the answers yourself. So the next time you are in a meeting and a decision is being made, instead of saying that you don't know, lead with questions.