Level 2 Ignorance

"You do not know what you do not know."

This quote travels in IT/IS communities. The humor lies in the second of the double meanings. Not only do you not know some thing. But there are also things you don't know and you are unaware of what they are. These are the Level 2 in The Five Levels Of Ignorance.

There are two dynamics at work here on the one hand your Level 2 Ignorance is like a minefield of problems. On the other hand simply learning the name of things which you do not know transforms them into Level 1 Ignorance.

These dynamics illuminate why command and control systems, everything from communism to waterfall, fail. And methods which stress grassroots bottom up development, like Agile, have shown stunning results.

The command and control tries to plan everything beforehand while all the participants are in their highest states of Level 2 Ignorance. In fact because the organization is making no attempt to discover Level 2 Ignorance it is operating at Level 3 Ignorance.

In contrast, the bottom up methods stress experimenting and thus gaining knowledge of the problem space. This will result in ignorance being discovered. Which means these methods guard against Level 3 Ignorance and thus are eliminating Level 2 Ignorance as well.