Paradigm Lost

As an academic consultant advising industry, two contrasting experiences are frequent. One is that the industry practitioners have strong domain knowledge that the consultant lacks. The other is that the industry practitioners often suffer from paradigm paralysis, using models of thinking that are either fundamentally inappropriate, or, perhaps more commonly, have become inappropriate through the passage of time and changes in technology and computing power. The data available has often grown considerably. Despite this increase in data (or perhaps because of it) paradigm paralysis can cause decision makers to fail to make full use of the available information or, worse, can lead to outcomes contrary to those intended. By coming in as an outsider, academic consultants can provide benefit by introducing new paradigms or updating previous paradigms, subject to the important proviso that they become familiar with the domain knowledge and work closely with the industry practitioners. In this paper, the author discusses a number of projects, in which he has been involved, that illustrate the occurrence of paradigm paralysis.