I'd agree this sort of thing does happen in regular life where the agent of change is someone who's had wide ranging experience and maybe a lateral thinker and adopting other work processes that are proven in existing industries. (However the story above is just that, the chance that happened as stated are slim ... and only for reasons along the lines I've mentioned being a bit isolated or operating in a vacuum.)
Sometimes, not that I can think of much software or hardware related situations, the fence is just an idea, years of experience have lead to a situation where they've established a comfort zone of sorts, and hesitant to change the way things are done ... often because they don't totally understand complicated processes they might be using ... or because things done differently might be more open (but rare) to a specific problem or being prone to a failure which from their previous experience, might have chewed up half a day to a day if not more to sort it out ... when the fix by someone who is competent (having been shown the correct way from the start) is able to resolve the issue quickly, barely 20 minutes of time and patience and it's in half an hour it's like nothing happened.
As for "do not fully understand" - yes that is an excellent way to describe total inadequacy.
Sometimes, not that I can think of much software or hardware related situations, the fence is just an idea, years of experience have lead to a situation where they've established a comfort zone of sorts, and hesitant to change the way things are done ... often because they don't totally understand complicated processes they might be using ... or because things done differently might be more open (but rare) to a specific problem or being prone to a failure which from their previous experience, might have chewed up half a day to a day if not more to sort it out ... when the fix by someone who is competent (having been shown the correct way from the start) is able to resolve the issue quickly, barely 20 minutes of time and patience and it's in half an hour it's like nothing happened.
As for "do not fully understand" - yes that is an excellent way to describe total inadequacy.