The budget is already allocated

What does it cost to adopt humane assessment?

Before we answer that, let's step back and see what humane assessment is. It is a method for making decisions regarding a software system. It's actually quite simple, and it boils down to understanding that proper decisions require information that is both accurate and specific. Considering that software systems are large and accommodate complex contexts, it follows that to retrieve the proper information you need tools that are customized to match the problem at hand.

Here is the thing. You already spend a significant amount of energy on making decisions that concern the fate of your system. And because the stake is so high, you already try to obtain the best information you can out of the system to reach the best decisions.

It's just that you might not do it explicitly. It happens somehow. Because of that, you probably spend the time doing manual work that both does not scale and is inaccurate. And because of that your decisions suffer.

How much does it cost to do it differently? It requires some initial investment to change the mindset and make assessment explicitly part of your daily life. But, in the end, this cost pales in comparison to the overall efforts you already spend.

The budget is already allocated. And the good news is that if you decide to spend a part of it differently, you can probably not go worse than you are doing right now. It can only get better.