We Ask for More of What We Already Have

Ask anyone what they need, and listen to the answer.

Most people will ask for more of what they already have. A bigger house. A better relationship. More safety. More comfort. More luxury.

It sounds reasonable. It sounds natural, even. Who would not want a bigger version of what already works?

Yet somewhere underneath, we know that more is not always what we actually need.

Very often, we don’t know what we actually need.

What we see is shaped by what is already there

This is not a failure of intelligence. It is how our minds work.

When we picture what we need, we start from where we stand. We take what is in front of us and imagine it improved: bigger, faster, smoother, safer. The picture is built entirely out of materials we already own.

We call that bias. But it is worth being precise about what kind. It is not prejudice, and it is not carelessness. It is simply that what we see is shaped by what is already there.

We cannot easily ask for something we have never seen. So we ask for a better version of what we have.

How this shows up in systems

Nowhere is this clearer than when organisations replace their business systems.

The process usually begins with requirements. Teams are asked what they need from the new system. So they look at what they do today. They identify the patterns. The screens they enter data into. The reports they produce each month. The steps they follow, in the order they follow them.

And then they write those patterns down as requirements.

The result is predictable. Our requirements become a replica of our current systems, flaws included.

The workaround becomes a requirement. The report nobody reads becomes a requirement. The approval step that exists only because the old system could not do something properly becomes a requirement.

Yet we cannot see it. From the inside, every one of these feels like a genuine need, because it is what we do every day.

A familiar example

Consider a council preparing to replace its finance system.

In the requirements workshops, the finance team is asked which reports they need. They do the sensible thing. They open the old system and list every report it produces. There are over a hundred. Each one goes into the requirements document, with a note that it must look and behave the same.

Nobody asks why each report exists. Some were built for a manager who left years ago. Some exist to cover a gap in the old system that the new one would not have. Several produce the same numbers in slightly different layouts, because different people asked at different times.

Now imagine the question is asked differently. Not “which reports do you use?” but “what decisions do you need to make each month, and what do you need to know to make them well?”

The answers are very different. Managers need to know where spending is running ahead of budget, early enough to act. The executive needs to know whether cash will cover the next quarter’s capital works. Council needs to see whether the year is on track, in a form elected members can read.

That is a short list. And it describes an outcome, not a copy of the past.

Start from the end

The better way is to understand the bias first. To accept that when we look for our needs, we will instinctively reach for a better version of what we already have.

Then, before anything else, know the end. Define in detail what outcome you are after. Not the features. Not the screens. Not the reports. The change you want to see once the work is done.

And once the outcome is clear, keep an open mind about the various ways you can reach it. The way you reach it today is only one of them, and it is rarely the best one. It is just the most familiar.

This is harder than listing requirements. It asks people to describe something they have not yet seen, and to let go of the comfort of the way things are done now. But without it, we spend a great deal of money and effort to arrive back where we started, with newer technology underneath.

The questions that remain

Here are some questions to ponder.

Think of the last thing you asked for, at work or at home. Was it something genuinely new, or a bigger version of what you already had?

If your organisation is about to replace a system, how many of its requirements describe an outcome, and how many describe the old system?

And if you were asked today to describe the end you are working towards, without mentioning how you currently get there, could you?