Your gathering style may impact your decisions. The way information is gathered can impact the decisions that need to be made. It is not just the information that you end up with that matters. It may also be the way it was brought together.
Some may allow quantity overshadows quality. They think that more information on one perspective outweighs less information. They search and find that the amount of ideas, options, agreements and people rallying around one particular perspective. They think that this overwhelming avalanche of data makes it the obvious choice. It might be, but it also might be that so many people may be wrong.
One reason more info may not mean stronger alignment is that there may be an imbalance of relevance. The information is not germane to the question. There is a lot of chatter, but not all of it might apply to your environment. If it is CAD related, are the voices speaking about the version you have? If not – does it really apply?
Bad use of information may include our tendency to process easier information first. A bullet list is processed faster than a narrative. A chart is more easily understood than a long description. Harder data may not be used because it is harder to digest. When this happens we may fail to look deep enough to get counterpoints and actually bias our perspectives.
Another is who said what. Where does the information originate? What is the level of expertise of the provider of this data? You need to know if the posting is unbiased, has no hidden agenda or influence on what they might provide. You need to know if the person or organization is respected in the industry. You need to know what might be effecting the presentation of the data. Someone speaking outside of his or her area of experience may not carry as much weight as an industry insider.
So think about how you go about finding input and make sure it is balanced.