This works very well IME. There is a potential issue however, in that if you are too prepared, you become married to your vision, even when someone else points out fatal flaws. Essentially you can lose flexibility.
This may or may not be what is desire, but I have seen projects go down in flames because of over-prep. The goal is to find a nice balance.
If you know what you're doing, then you'll actually be the first to dismember your original vision. Indeed, a principle value of this approach is that when you do hit the inevitable need for changes, you're already well acquainted with how all the pieces fit together. This allows you evaluate options by considering not only their obvious pluses and minuses, but also by anticipating the more hidden costs and benefits of any given alteration.
This (I believe) is what Eisenhower meant when he said "plans are useless, but planning is invaluable."
I concur, in principle, but in practice I have both seen and experienced what happens when one gets too involved. It can be quite the challenge to accept that a good idea is coming from some jerk who didn't even bother thinking about it before the meeting. Or worse, the fatal flaw gets pointed out by someone who has spent the last half hour trying to torpedo the thing by hoping to get lucky with random comments.
On the other hand, there is quite the satisfaction that comes from seeing an opponents face when you show up so well prepared -- the moment of victory is sweet :)
Um, actually you WANT the lazy jerk to contribute a good idea. For one thing, a good idea is a good idea, and the object of the game is to surface as many as possible.
More importantly, by giving the jerk copious credit, you'll do a lot to mitigate his natural tendency to derail things that may require risk and / or effort on his part. Win #2.
And of course, nothing irritates the truly motivated more than seeing a known lazy jerk score an easy victory. Chances are high that a calculated display of magnanimity from you will cause people who actually deserve credit to restore moral equilibrium by making their own (and probably better considered) contributions as well.
All that said, if you use Jefferson's approach to pre-emptivly silence a reflexive critic, yeah, it's great.
Agreed. For example, you can intentionally leave the color of the bike shed unspecified. So the other folks can launch into heated debate over something they can understand and take ownership over the final decision. Meanwhile, the overall shape and functionality of the shed gets accepted per your design, even the very necessity of the shed may be blindly accepted.
It can be tough being "that guy" in every dev meeting who always asks the same awkward questions: "Do we even need to do this? Are we sure? Can we get by with something smaller?"
Sometimes it's easier just to let people's pointless bikesheds through committee. I'll save my political capital for something I feel more strongly about.
This may or may not be what is desire, but I have seen projects go down in flames because of over-prep. The goal is to find a nice balance.