Are technical decisions in F1 teams "authoritarian" or "democratic"?

[hsg]

Does one person(Chief Technical Officer) decide in wich direction car concept must go or that is decision of group of people(where the majority solution will win)?
Every F1 team has hundreds of engineers that works on specific part, but does one person in the end decide which part will be produced and installed on the car?

Are technical decisions in F1 teams "authoritarian" or "democratic"?

[Rodak]

They're engineeric......

[hsg]

They're engineeric......

Of course they do, but does one person choose final idea/direction?
There is hundreds solutions how you can design floor aero..

[dialtone]

Does one person(Chief Technical Officer) decide in wich direction car concept must go or that is decision of group of people(where the majority solution will win)?
Every F1 team has hundreds of engineers that works on specific part, but does one person in the end decide which part will be produced and installed on the car?

Are technical decisions in F1 teams "authoritarian" or "democratic"?

No different than any other company and largely depends on the leader.

Usually good practices would prescribe that unless you do the work, you should refrain from “adding too much value” as various leadership books recommend. Generally the CTO wants to optimize for the team working their best and they do when they work on their ideas.

It is a fine line for the CTO to perform an inception of his/her ideas into their team and then allow the team to execute based on high level measurable and specific goals.

Alternatives are usually micromanagement and being authoritarian only really works if the CTO knows everything already and wants to move very fast, but usually it’s still not that easy anyway and they may lose the team on the way to implement, which could end anyway in a poor result.

None of this is easy to do and it’s very intentional from the leader, it’s extremely easy to become “stubborn” and “force” the team to do what you want, which you really shouldn’t.

As far as decisions go, there is usually never decision by committee in good teams, data decides, and delegation is the best approach.

[Rodak]

Alternatives are usually micromanagement and being authoritarian only really works if the CTO knows everything already and wants to move very fast, but usually it’s still not that easy anyway and they may lose the team on the way to implement, which could end anyway in a poor result.

Good answer. To see a prime example of this look to Hill Helicopters where Dr. Hill decided not only to design a new low cost helicopter, but also to build a 'low cost' gas turbine engine from scratch. And a new rotor head design. And decide on the door handles. And make his own ball bearings. And...... Engine startup is so far four years late.

[hsg]

No different than any other company and largely depends on the leader.

Usually good practices would prescribe that unless you do the work, you should refrain from “adding too much value” as various leadership books recommend. Generally the CTO wants to optimize for the team working their best and they do when they work on their ideas.

It is a fine line for the CTO to perform an inception of his/her ideas into their team and then allow the team to execute based on high level measurable and specific goals.

Alternatives are usually micromanagement and being authoritarian only really works if the CTO knows everything already and wants to move very fast, but usually it’s still not that easy anyway and they may lose the team on the way to implement, which could end anyway in a poor result.

None of this is easy to do and it’s very intentional from the leader, it’s extremely easy to become “stubborn” and “force” the team to do what you want, which you really shouldn’t.

As far as decisions go, there is usually never decision by committee in good teams, data decides, and delegation is the best approach.

This is top-down hierarchy, so that mean that car design around one person philosophy.

[Greg Locock]

I've seen both approaches, I would be amazed if a modern professional car-designing organisation relied on one guy making the big decisions in isolation. At the same time once you have 3 sensible experts together they'll nut out the broad outline of the solution quite quickly. There may be doors slammed.

[hollus]

Are technical decisions in F1 teams "authoritarian" or "democratic"?

Not that I really know, but I hope and feel that the answer is YES.
As in there is the one guy that gets to decide but 90% of the time he feels the room and goes with the expert’s choice or with the room’s consensus decision.
And only when it is on the fence, he really decides.
Then I get the feeling that in a few cases it is the authoritarian way, and then you can get an Alpine. Or a Newey, but he probably creates (forces) the consensus anyways.


Happy to hear from insiders how this works in reality.

[hsg]

Then I get the feeling that in a few cases it is the authoritarian way, and then you can get an Alpine. Or a Newey, but he probably creates (forces) the consensus anyways.
Happy to hear from insiders how this works in reality.

How Adrian works?

[Greg Locock]

Yup that's your made up fantasy land how engineering works. Delegation is the key, not bossyboots.

[Richard C]

I sure hope it's not a democracy! That is a recipe for disaster in any organization. I have been in meeting in which some treat decisions as if it is a democracy and they want a vote. If that is how it plays, you just invite more people to the meeting who believe in your position to the meeting. I am not saying input is not welcome or should not be offered, but everyone is not equal when it comes to making decisions. I would expect like most organizations, someone (might be a single person or a committee) who is in charge of making the final decision on specific items. Responsibility are likely delegated to subordinates as you don't expect one person to be expected to make all technical decisions. That would also be a mess. I would expect that high impact "key technical concepts" are decided upon at a high level (with input from below) and smaller details are handled at lower levels. And as always a good leader will be informed with the options and the specific details. In a perfect world, consensus is achieved in advance via discussion vs. a need for a singular person to "decide" when consensus can't be reached. But sometimes it happens that opposing opinions are pitched and someone has to pick one vs. the other.

Richard

[Greg Locock]

I specified 3 experts for a reason. It is a well studied phenomenon that brainstorming works most successfully when the experienced people dominate the result, and adding more experts does not improve the outcome. Very few technical decisions are by vote hence the number of supporters is irrelevant.

[PlatinumZealot]

Does one person(Chief Technical Officer) decide in wich direction car concept must go or that is decision of group of people(where the majority solution will win)?
Every F1 team has hundreds of engineers that works on specific part, but does one person in the end decide which part will be produced and installed on the car?

Are technical decisions in F1 teams "authoritarian" or "democratic"?

Engineers should be driven by logic and calculations. If there is a decision that must be taken and the numbers are not clear or inconclusive, then it depends on what the leadership style is in that organization. In F1 you hear many stories of authoritarian and more democratic engineering decisions. So I think it depends on the team management style and leadership at any given time. For example... Ron Dennis' decision to use Honda Engines.

[Greg Locock]

Wasn't that a desire to bring more of the energy recovery engineering in-house rather than relying on Mercedes? If so that's a management decision, not technical.

[basti313]

This is top-down hierarchy, so that mean that car design around one person philosophy.

No, not really.
It works simple...instead of the CTO clinching numbers (or worse deciding by gut feeling) you have project coordinators clinching numbers and a strategy group to decide on the results and directions. The CTO is part of the strategy group, at least in the discission phase.
Usually the concept comes from the pitches of the project coordinators in the end.