Just recently I was preparing for a mountainbike tour. I was though not sure about the weather. Dark clouds were at the horizon. Rain or not that was the question. For about 10 minutes I consulted several webservices. It didn't look good. I figured I would try it anyway. Going outside I had to realize that it's already raining.
Projectmanagement is the same. Reading countless reports and analysis that should facilitat making a decision. It's though not enough to base decision on reports only. After all it's about people. We as project managers are in the people business. People have to carry out decisions. People will have to live with them.
Going out and getting a real feelig of what the situation is like is easy, fun and in many cases much faster than just reading and analyzing.