Good judgement

"Joan Baez and Bob Dylan" by Rowland Scherman, National Archives and Records Administration - http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2011/05/21/dylans-career-in-photos/. Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows

Bob Dylan burnt that line to my memory with his song Subterranean Homesick Blues (1965)

Bob reminds me that whilst you can't predict the weather in detail without specific data, you can always see what's going on around you and you can predict the seasons. Summer always follows spring, and it's usually warmer. You know this from your experience. Your experience feeds your intuition.

Good judgement is a skill that all of us can develop and improve. In the world of tech startups, it can mean the difference between success and failure.

Good judgement relies on knowing the difference between decisions that need lots of data and those that don't. In many cases making decisions on a well research data set is the right thing to do. Yet there comes a point where gathering more information is not going to get give you significantly more insight. It's decision time.

Good judgement means being decisive when needed and moving onwards in an assured way, being able to explain why.

Good judgement includes the little things. It means being fair and balanced.

“Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment.” - Rita Mae Brown