In my class there was a conversation between a few students that left me thinking for a while. A group of students are working on a compelling project that focuses on developing a personal understanding on the flaws of the fishing market and eventually, creating a documentary to began an awareness. I am not sure what is the title of the group, but I am going to call them The Fisherman’s Team (TFT). Well the TFT wanted valuable feedback on the progress and future direction their project is taking. They were addressing a controversial problem on fisher folk, which technically are illegal fisherman. TFT were working very hard to understand the problem; they contacted professionals like Gaston Acurio to collect insightful information. However, during the gathering, I raised an interesting question. I don’t remember exactly the exact words of the question, but it was basically an alert to the TFT. I was letting them know that they needed information from a variety of sources, not just from well-known chefs. Limiting sources of information, limits the level of knowledge a person has on a topic. In other words TFT will end up making assumptions instead of uncovering realities.
An assumption is a sneaky obstacle in research projects. Without realizing it, your research can be useless because it is full of unknown theoretical notions that might not be clear to the researcher. But, it will be clear to those who analyze the research paper. Assumptions began to make a stance when we don’t fully understand a situation. I believe this is true and so does Stephanie Ward who wrote a business article on “Why Are Assumptions Bad for Business?” She believes that it is natural for people to make assumptions in order to demonstrate others that they know information regarding a topic at a high level. Though, the problem is that usually the assumptions we make are incorrect, hindering the future to a business or to a project like TFT.
Going back to the class discussion, later that day Rafael Franco, Cristobal de Osma and I went back to talk with the TFT to figure out some solutions to avoid an expected failure in the future. They realized and agreed that the group had to expand its width of sources. I understand the notion that the fish folk’s are conscientious and that there hard work isn’t correlated to their earnings; but, the TFT, needs to find tangible facts, if not nobody will believe them. Duckthought, our podcast team, also had a similar problem a month ago. The group assumed that focusing on an opinion based website on world issues would be a great hit, and that the parents will be enchanted with the project; however, the presentation didn’t go as we assumed. After the valuable feedback from the parents, the group realized that developing a website and writing articles weekly would be way beyond our reach with the amount of people our group has (five people). Once we realized the failure in the future, the group pivoted and instead of developing a website, we would create a podcast. Communicating ideas are fluid, the environment is friendly and it is tangible for a group of five people. TFT isn’t going to fail; on the contrary, I think they are heading towards a perfect path where they experience reflections and adjustments. All types of firms, organizations, governments, and families learn a lot because of making mistakes. These institutes and groups have their ordinary mistakes because of their different work forces or culture, but they all have one common enemy, assumptions.