Revisiting Decisions, Making Mistakes One of the unsung benefits of committing to a data-driven culture is the combined ability and necessity of admitting to mistakes. A decision will be made at some point, based on the available data — hopefully based on good data and only a few assumptions, but implicitly based on currently available data. As new data comes in, contexts change, or assumptions are dispelled, it might become clear that a decision was in error or that it made sense at the time but no longer does.
I think we should be careful about calling them mistakes, which can be demoralizing.
"Made sense at the time," is key. It could be "wrong" only given the new information we have now (that wasn't reasonably available then), but right given the information and trade-offs at the time.
Perhaps as general guidance: It's more likely to be okay to call it a mistake when you're talking about your decision, but less likely when you're talking about someone else's. Compare: "I now know that changing the color was a mistake," vs "We now know it was a mistake for Bob to change the color."
