Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement

When the business environment is changing very quickly, or when we are under pressure, one of the easiest mistakes to make is that of jumping to a conclusion based on “Judgement” – and then looking for the evidence to justify the decisions made. Anybody who has read a history of national secret services will find examples of simple deceptions which exploit this human characteristic.

Most organisations have recognised this human failing and have policies and procedures in place that ensure decisions are made based on facts and data.

However, there are two important factors which we need to keep remembering:

1. Increased workload and associated pressures may be negating the benefits of changes in working practices.
2. Memory is selective. It is only a matter of time before some of us start forgetting the reasons for these policies and procedures and, under presssure to "move things forward", start to make judgement based decisions when we should slow down a little and base decisions on facts and data.