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Common Sense

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Larry Miner Founder and Sr. Project Management of Decision Memory Systems| Decision Memory Systems Bath, Oh, United States
Listening to the US Senate trial this week and Jamie Raskin's request to use the same, I had the thought to ask here, Where does common sense come into play in our every day project management practices?
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Thomas Walenta Global Project Economy Expert Hackenheim, Germany
For me common sense means a certain perspective used by a group of people, like cultures, professionals, or also sects.

Other groups may and do use other perspectives.

For a group of cannibals, it might be common sense to munch on the eyes of their food first. For a group of mainly old white men in power for decades, common sense is probably not the same as for the people they govern.

Common sense is relative, not an absolute view many may look for. Your common sense is probably not my common sense, maybe besides some perspectives we share as project professionals.
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1 reply by Ethan Dwyer
Feb 14, 2021 2:27 PM
Ethan Dwyer
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Thomas - Great insight! "Common sense" is relative, the shared sense of a specific population or group, which will vary from group to group. Awareness of this is probably a foundation of social intelligence.
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Ethan Dwyer Or, United States
Feb 14, 2021 1:00 PM
Replying to Thomas Walenta
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For me common sense means a certain perspective used by a group of people, like cultures, professionals, or also sects.

Other groups may and do use other perspectives.

For a group of cannibals, it might be common sense to munch on the eyes of their food first. For a group of mainly old white men in power for decades, common sense is probably not the same as for the people they govern.

Common sense is relative, not an absolute view many may look for. Your common sense is probably not my common sense, maybe besides some perspectives we share as project professionals.
Thomas - Great insight! "Common sense" is relative, the shared sense of a specific population or group, which will vary from group to group. Awareness of this is probably a foundation of social intelligence.
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Keith Novak Tukwila, Wa, United States
Common sense doesn't sound official enough to justify the paycheck of a professional so, instead we use "heuristics". These are the things we do because we know they usually work, but it sounds far more official than "educated guess-timate".
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Kiron Bondale Retired | Mentor| Retired Welland, Ontario, Canada
I'd agree with Ethan, that common sense is a subjective, context-specific term. I'd prefer a PM to use good judgment which is decision-making in the light of a specific context.

Kiron
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Sergio Luis Conte Helping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based Organizations Buenos Aires, Argentina
"Common sense is the least common of the senses" Voltaire said and I believe that. But, as some of the comments above pointed out, in what context?. Voltaire already defined his phrase as the fact that "unanimity is not always given or perceived about what is really logical or what is expected in each situation". While you need to evaluate "common sense" it has to be put in objective way which demands from the evaluator to put herself/himself in a high level of abstraction. And at least, has it sense?.
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Anton Oosthuizen Senior Business Analyst / Project Manager| Self Employed Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa
One of the more common definitions is 'good judgement in practical matters' and that about sums it up for me. Context definitely plays a part since practical matters in project management is not the same as practical matters in engineering. But there is also a part that is not dependent on any context that applies no matter where you are or what you do.

If we ask the question 'what is common sense in project management' I think it would apply to the basics i.e. it is common sense to manage risk.

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