I apply Chesterton's Fence to pretty much everything, from code to design to business goals to politics. Back when I worked for a large tech company, I'd get deeply frustrated with their slow decision-making framework. I'd joined the company through their acquisition of our company and it felt like banging my head against a wall all day.

It was only a year after I quit that it began to make sense. Now I try to assume that people had good reasons for their implementations and I try to figure that out first.