Michael Schrage on the (uphill) task of reaching consensus while sitting on a design jury. Majority verdicts, let alone unanimous conclusions, are far and few between apparently.

By far the most striking revelation for me was the collective designer obsession with detail. You’ve no doubt heard the phrase “God is in the details” or “The devil is in the details”? This design jury had heaven and earth covered. You can talk “brand” or “vision” or “concept” or “insight” or “elegance” until you’re blue in the face, but world-class designers care about how those ideals are expressed in the details. Something that I would dismiss as a niggling detail the designers would say revealed the essential point they were trying to make. Great design is about the ordering and intention of details that you can - or aren’t supposed to - see and feel.