Guessing is not a strategy: How to build decision velocity with AI and real-time data
June 10, 2026 | Live Webinar
Blinded By The Light
David Schmaltz is a project manager in Takoma Park, Maryland.
Few practicing project professionals would question the necessity of a shared vision. It has been burned into our worldview. But what if shared vision is not as important as we’ve been told? When a project team holds on for dear life to one unified perspective, who’s left watching the blind side, where most risks (and rewards) reside?
“Well I unsnapped his skull cap and between his ears I saw a gap but figured he'd be all right” — Bruce Springsteen, “Blinded By The Light”
Sure, it’s easy to peek into a foundering project, find an incoherent vision, and conclude that myopia caused the foundering. Scientists call this sort of conclusion Magical Thinking because it’s based upon a single situation, decided after the fact, and cannot be conclusively proved — or disproved. One might just as easily decide that the absence of lucky T-shirts caused the difficulty … or lack of gumption … or insufficient executive support.
Can we imagine an instance where the need for a shared vision might inhibit progress? Easily. A local economic development group milled around for two years failing to get the proper constituency to agree on a vision for their project. Why? Well, the first phase of their economic development methodology clearly said that a shared vision needed to come before anything else. And so it did.
&…
Please log in or sign up below to read the rest of the article.
ADVERTISEMENTS
|
"It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not to deserve them." - Mark Twain |