Making decisions

A process for making organisational decisions needs to be found. The one that the articles are implying is:

What is the need of the community based on data
What is the best way to fulfill this need based on research
Develop a plan that includes a review phase
Get people on board and go go go
Monitor and gather data as you go go go
At your review point consolidate the data
Evaluate your data, look at new research and meet the needs of the community again

Ray Daniels has a thought provoking article at:
The 2056 school: knowledge management, nature and Socratic thinking

He is suggesting a vision of the 2056 school and the strategies that his team are using and what educational research it is based on.

The one point that is made somewhere is that some educators are like old medicine men. We make decisions based on what we think is best. We need to make decisions based on research, on the body of knowledge that is out there so that we can make informed decisions.

Is this the best way to be guiding our students. Do we develop them to be future citizens that make informed decisions based on research? Or is this me be a medicine man again and follow my own thoughts and not basing it on any hard evidence???