Analysis is an exercise in judgement under conditions of uncertainty, and the errors in judgment we make, singly, or in groupd, in a day, or through life, are countless. In organizational settings, especially in complicated, complex, or chaotic situations a dependable measure night be - as Daniel Kahneman et al. intimate but do not underscore - to legitimize early dissent and quickly place creative, contrarian † objections and suggestions on the table to reinforce the decision-making process and thereby improve a plan's chances of success before it stalls, peters out, or backfires.
From Proposition 22 - the Postmortem Technique, in On Safe Silence, Bias, and Dissent
† The Devil's advocate was a function and office introduced by the Roman Catholic Church in the 16th century to take a skeptical views of the proposals for the canonization of a candidate.
