Ostrom's principles for managing a commons rest on the idea that people will seek to solve the problems that they face as effectively as they can:

“As long as analysts presume that individuals cannot change such situations themselves, they do not ask what internal or external variables can enhance or impede the efforts of communities of individuals to deal creatively and constructively with perverse problems such as the tragedy of the commons.”

You cannot solve a problem until you know what it is and what is getting in the way of solving it. Once you know these things, you can bake them into the solution itself.