Data Governance needs Searchers, not Planners by Jim Harris.
From the post:
In his book Everything Is Obvious: How Common Sense Fails Us, Duncan Watts explained that “plans fail, not because planners ignore common sense, but rather because they rely on their own common sense to reason about the behavior of people who are different from them.”
As development economist William Easterly explained, “A Planner thinks he already knows the answer; A Searcher admits he doesn’t know the answers in advance. A Planner believes outsiders know enough to impose solutions; A Searcher believes only insiders have enough knowledge to find solutions, and that most solutions must be homegrown.”
I made a similar point in my post Data Governance and the Adjacent Possible. Change management efforts are resisted when they impose new methods by emphasizing bad business and technical processes, as well as bad data-related employee behaviors, while ignoring unheralded processes and employees whose existing methods are preventing other problems from happening.
If you don’t remember any line from any post you read here or elsewhere, remember this one:
“…they rely on their own common sense to reason about the behavior of people who are different from them.”
Whenever you encounter a situation where that description fits, you will find failed projects, waste and bad morale.