Comment by luka-birsa

What about:

- Asking them why did you pick X? (here you might get an answer why you didn't pick Y) - Telling them that you tried Y and it worked for you.

So it's understanding their process and sharing your experience. I think in the end you should have the engineer decide on his own.

In the end they might go with X anyways, so you'll need to react to that.

I've had an engineer going for X for 14 days, but every time we had a discussion I've asked additional questions about X for me (and them) to understand why going for X is a better approach. In the end he figured it out that Y is a better approach. While it took a while, the engineering person in the end figured it out and took the solution for his.

I've also had cases where this didn't work out, but in those cases I've put my foot down saying you need to use Y to the person. It's also the case that person is not with us anymore.