Now when we have more experienced, professional, and mature developers I have to invest more time in making my point or proving that the ideas and suggestions I want to push through make sense. So I'm thinking that what I need to do is spend more time researching, learning, and writing.
What triggered this thinking was two topics: "No staging server" and "1-week sprint". My gut feeling tells me those are good decisions (vs staging server and 2-week sprint).
Those ideas are not coming from anywhere, that is probably an accumulation of all the information I gathered and experience that I don't have reference to.
So how to defend my position? I need to invest time in the things mentioned above: do research, find other peoples' experiences, check for pros and cons when there is a choice to be made, and write down the summary.
That could possibly screw the whole conversation with a team and made other members overwhelmed by the amount of information and effort put into making my case, so much that they would just give up and accept it without a fight - and is that good?
Perhaps I will be biased in trying to prove my starting point. Perhaps I will change my mind while exploring the topic. I have to be responsible for that decision. If someone challenges it then I would have to go back and try to reevaluate everything.
Anyway, writing it down will require some commitment, and diligent research and it will make it official. With that "document" I can back up my ideas. It is not reinventing anything - just noting it down.