The organisation creates a culture where either the system or seniority becomes unquestionable. When people are unable or unwilling to challenge data, professional judgement, or established assumptions, they can suppress conflicting evidence rather than investigate it, allowing weak signals of emerging asset risk to remain hidden until consequences become significantly more difficult and expensive to manage.
- Data and experience should provide different forms of evidence rather than being treated as competing sources of truth.
- Tacit knowledge provides context that systems may not capture, particularly where experienced people recognise patterns, conditions or emerging risks.
- Confirmation bias can affect both data and professional judgement when people selectively interpret evidence that supports what they already believe.
- Data confidence needs to be understood rather than assumed because not all information carries the same level of accuracy, completeness or reliability.
- Professional judgement should be valued but remain open to challenge so experience complements rather than overrides available evidence.
- People need permission to challenge information when data appears inconsistent with what they are observing operationally.
- Clear escalation pathways help resolve conflicting evidence before uncertainty develops into unmanaged organisational risk.
- Assurance provides a mechanism to test competing evidence and determine whether information remains fit for the decision being made.
- Psychological safety allows people to challenge assumptions without fearing that questioning data, systems or senior decisions will be viewed negatively.
- Mature organisations reconcile conflicting evidence systematically by bringing data, experience, risk and context together before making a decision.
Real World
I learned early in my career that experience is incredibly valuable, but it can also create blind spots. When Acme began moving from cam-driven machinery to CNC technology, people with decades of experience understood the old machines in ways no database ever could. At the same time, the external environment was changing: automotive manufacturing was declining locally, spare parts were becoming harder to source, specialist skills were disappearing, CNC costs were falling, and competitors were gaining access to technology that had once created differentiation. Experience could tell us how to keep the existing equipment running. It couldn’t, by itself, tell us whether keeping it running was still the right strategic decision.
I’ve since come to believe that the healthiest asset management cultures don’t choose between data and experience. They make the two challenge each other. If the data tells me an asset is healthy, and an experienced operator tells me something has changed, I want to understand the discrepancy. Equally, if someone’s experience says, “We’ve always done it this way,” while lifecycle cost, failure history or market conditions point somewhere else, experience needs to be challenged too. The goal isn’t to prove which side is right. The goal is to create an organisation where evidence and experience can disagree openly—and where that disagreement leads to a better decision, not a battle over whose opinion carries more authority.
Change Management Perspective
This is where organisational culture becomes visible. When the dashboard says one thing and an experienced employee says another, I don’t believe the answer is to automatically trust either. I want an organisation where people feel able to challenge the information, where professional judgement is respected but can also be tested, and where conflicting evidence triggers investigation rather than defensiveness.
From an organisational change perspective, that requires psychological safety, clear escalation mechanisms, information assurance and leaders who are comfortable having their assumptions challenged. The objective is not to create a data-driven organisation or an experience-driven organisation. It is to create an informed decision-making organisation where evidence, experience, risk and context can be brought together before a decision is made.
Key Takeaway
An informed decision-making culture doesn’t blindly trust data or experience. It creates a disciplined way of challenging both.
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