The Loudest Voice

Talk the most, listen the least. Architecture is a solo sport with an audience.

Commonly affects: Senior participants in mixed-experience teams, people with strong opinions and low self-awareness.

The Anti-Pattern

One person takes over the conversation from the start. They describe the architecture they have in mind, assign parts of the diagram to others, and answer every question before anyone else can think. The rest of the team becomes an audience. If someone tries to offer an alternative, they get talked over or their idea gets quickly dismissed with “yeah but” before it’s fully formed.

From the outside, the team looks productive. One voice is confidently driving the design forward. But only one brain is actually engaged.

Why It Feels Right

Confidence reads as competence. The person dominating often has strong opinions and moves fast, which feels like leadership in a time-constrained exercise. The rest of the team may even feel relieved that someone is “taking charge” because it removes the discomfort of ambiguity. And the loud voice themselves genuinely believes they’re helping the team be more efficient.

The Catastrophe

The architecture reflects one person’s perspective, blind spots included. Ideas that would have caught gaps, challenged assumptions, or offered better trade-offs never surface. Quieter team members disengage entirely, contributing nothing to the design and learning nothing from the exercise.

During the presentation, it becomes obvious. One person does all the talking. When reviewers direct a question at someone else on the team, they fumble because they weren’t part of the actual design process. The “team” solution is really a solo solution with witnesses.

The worst part: the person dominating often walks away thinking the kata went great, unaware of what they cost the team.

The Rescue

Collaboration requires intentional space for every voice:

• Rotate who speaks. Before discussing solutions, do a round where each person shares their initial read of the problem. No interruptions.
• Use silent brainstorming. Have everyone spend 5 minutes writing down ideas independently before group discussion. This prevents anchoring to the first (loudest) idea.
• Assign roles. One person facilitates discussion, another captures decisions, another plays devil’s advocate. Rotate these roles across katas.
• Check in explicitly. Ask quieter members directly: “What do you think about this approach?” Create the space rather than waiting for them to fight for it.
• Split the presentation. If only one person can present the whole design, the collaboration was broken.