Collect, analyze, and interpret data bearing on the anticipated costs and benefits of the contemplated change . We want to know the pros and cons, the costs and benefits, the intended outcomes and the unintended or undesirable consequences. The total impact of a technology cannot be foreseen, even by the best analysis. No research in the world is going to uncover all the impact and consequences of a proposed technology. Even after the fact, a technology's impact on the larger context is impossible to fully assess.
Negative consequences are harder to detect.
We believe that planning processes suffer from an inherent bias that over-values technology, because technologies are specifically designed to yield an advantage, to solve a problem. Some of the most important outcomes may resist quantification. Once people have created or initiated and refined an innovation, they often feel an intense sense of identification with it. Indeed, change agents can develop a parent-like relationship with the innovation, promoting it in spite of flaws, or believing they have worked out the flaws. Consequently, change agents often do not welcome comments and suggestions from the feedback loop.