Nobody knows what to do.
Admitted, that sounds rather clickbaity, but sometimes being a bit extreme can help make a point.
Technology has become way too complex for one individual to fully comprehend. Any fundamental change will lead to uncertaintenties that make it impossible to forsee every possible outcome.
And we can’t research everything before starting to implement the change we want to have. The time we can invest into reading documentation, interviewing experts and building proof of concepts is limited (mostly but not only because of economical reasons).
We are all guessing, more or less. Some may have a lot of experience in one area, and that certainly helps, but requirements are ever changing as is the environment.
So instead of exactly knowing what to do, we are placing bets. We make (hopefully) good informed decisions and see how they work out.
But what if our bets don’t work out?
Then we correct our assumptions and place another, hopefully improved bet.
To greatly increase the chances that this iterative process leads to a good solution, one concept is essential: it’s called ownership.
Only if someone owns the process of placing bets we can make sure every bet brings us closer to our goal.
If nobody owns the consequence of a decision, we leave it up to chance that someone will take charge to create the improved, modified new bet. However, this new person still doesn’t know.
The following diagram summarizes my point:
