Monthly Archives: December 2013

OnIgnorance

There is one simple fact that, while often hard to accept, is true of every single person who ever lived: we are all ignorant. For everything we think we know, there are almost infinite aspects of understanding that are and will always be beyond us. But that doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing. The key is to realise what form your ignorance takes and take action to try and steer it in the right direction.

// Blissful Ignorance

Blissful ignorance is an easy trap to fall into: everything seems to be going great, until it isn’t and you realise that your project is at risk of missing the deadline or even of total failure. Every effort should be made to avoid becoming complacent and failing to recognise faults and their potential mitigation within your organisation.

// Willful Ignorance

A far greater crime than blissful ignorance is to notice the warning signs, the cracks and creaks of a failing system, and to turn a blind eye to them, or declare that there is little that can be done. Something can always be done and if it isn’t, the trouble is just stored up for the future.

// Lucid Ignorance

If blissful and willful ignorance are the two negative aspects of ignorance, the positive counterpoint is lucid ignorance. While at first, lucid ignorance (a term I first came across in Jim McCarthy’s 21 Rules of Thumb) seems an unusual concept, its symptoms are very commonly understood: a daunting feeling at a great challenge or the realisation that you are out of your depth.

The natural reaction to such trepidation is often to try and suppress it. However, in the first of his rules Jim asserts the importance of embracing lucid ignorance and not accepting a group belief in pseudo-order or magical conversions of ignorance into knowledge. To question and demand acknowledgement of exactly where the risks – the lack of prior experience, lack of resources and lack of understanding – are in the project and to work as a team to get from the state of unknowing to a well understood vision, goals and structure.

‘It is essential not to profess to know, or seem to know, or accept that someone else knows, that which is unknown.’

– Jim McCarthy, 21 Rules of Thumb for Shipping Great Software on Time

As such it is important never to accept shaky justification or perceived wisdom as reason enough for project decisions. If no-one can justify why you’re doing something then that should be a major warning sign that it might be the wrong thing to do. If you are doing something purely because someone else does it then you may be missing the whole point, or just driving your product into a crowded marketplace, against established competitors, while missing the opportunity to find your own unique selling point.

// Mitigations for Ignorance

So what can be done to try and improve the amount of lucid ignorance within a team?

  • Don’t delay or defer the difficult aspects of your design. Attempt to establish within well understood parameters exactly what is and isn’t possible – both theoretically and from a practical standpoint.
  • Don’t assume something you are told to be true. It may be that a concept that appears easy is unfeasible, while another that seems impossible, at first, only requires a little lateral thinking. This is particularly important if it involves the collaboration of multiple parties, check with all of them that they concur.
  • Establish good review procedures, welcome the input of even the most junior members of your team and frequently re-examine your group assumptions to ensure they still hold.
  • Don’t skimp on project maintenance or ignore warnings as ‘minor’. While working on the next big feature can seem more appealing than fixing existing features, it is easy  for major issues, that cause projects to run the risk of failure or damage relationships with clients, to be obscured or overlooked.