why you're a terrible pm: cognitive biases in project management
TRANSCRIPT
WHY YOU’RE A
TERRIBLE PM: COGNITIVE BIASES IN PROJECT
MANAGEMENT
The brain is fundamentally a lazy piece of meat.
Gregory Berns
All info from dawn of
civilization to 2003
= every 2 days now
Eric Schmidt… 2010
1 REST 2 EAT
3 MOVE 4 PLAN
5 CHEAT
There can be as much value in the blink of an eye as in months of rational analysis.
Malcolm Gladwell
A bat and ball cost
$1.10.
The bat costs $1
more than the ball.
How much does the
ball cost?
Linda is 31 years old, single,
outspoken, and very bright. She
majored in philosophy. As a
student, she was deeply
concerned with issues of
discrimination and social
justice, and also participated in
antiwar demonstrations.
Bank Teller
Feminist
Bank
Teller
Tornados
Lightning
Accidents
Asthma
Botulism
Diabetes
vs.
Box A Box B
50 Yellow Balls
50 Green Balls
? Yellow Balls
? Green Balls
But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know.
Donald Rumsfeld
1 Surface temperature of the sun?
2 The year of Alexander the Great’s
birth?
3 Area of the Asian continent?
From Software Estimation by Steve McConnell (Microsoft Press, 2006)
and is © 2006 Steve McConnell. All rights reserved.
The average expert was roughly as accurate as a dart-throwing chimpanzee.
Philip Tetlock
How old was Gandhi
when he died?
33.9
27.4 48.6
33.9
27.4 48.6
55.5
Piers Steel
Motivation =
Expectancy x Value
Impulsiveness x Delay
Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.
Cyril Parkinson
1 EXTERNALIZE 2 BREAKDOWN
3 WORST 1ST 4 PUBLIC
5 OBSTACLES 6 FOCUS
Actor-observer bias | Ambiguity effect | Anchoring | Anthropic bias | Attentional bias |
Availability heuristic | Bandwagon effect | Beneffectance | Bias blind spot | Choice
supportive bias | Clustering illusion | Confabulation | Confirmation bias | Congruence
bias | Conjunction fallacy | Consistency bias | Contrast effect | Cryptomnesia |
Déformation professionnelle | Dunning-Kruger effect | Egocentric bias | Endowment
effect | Exposure-suspicion bias | Extreme aversion | False consensus effect |
Focusing effect | Forer effect | Framing | Frequency illusion | Fundamental attribution
error | Gambler's fallacy | Halo effect | Herd instinct | Hindsight bias | Hostile media
effect | Hyperbolic discounting | Illusion of asymmetric insight | Illusion of control |
Illusion of transparency | Illusory correlation | Impact bias | Information bias | Ingroup
bias | Irrational escalation | Just-world phenomenon | Lake Wobegon effect | Loss
aversion | Ludic fallacy | Mere exposure effect | Modesty bias | Neglect of prior base
rates effect | Neglect of probability | Notational bias | Obsequiousness bias | Observer
expectancy effect | Omission bias | Optimism bias | Outcome bias | Outgroup
homogeneity bias | Overconfidence effect | Planning fallacy | Positive outcome bias |
Post-purchase rationalization | Primacy effect | Projection bias | Pseudocertainty
| Reactance | Recency effect | Reminiscence bump | Rosy retrospection | Selective
memory | Selective perception | Self-fulfilling prophecy | Self-serving bias | Status quo
bias | Subadditivity effect | Suggestibility | Survivorship bias | System justification |
Telescoping effect | Texas sharpshooter fallacy | Trait ascription bias | Ultimate
attribution error | Unacceptability bias | Unit bias | Von Restorff effect | Zero-risk bias
Douglas Hofstadter
Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law.
We can be blind to the obvious, and we are also blind to our blindness.
Daniel Kahneman
1 SLOW DOWN 2 WBS IT
3 GO OUTSIDE 4 PRE-MORTEM
5 BE SAD 6 REMEMBER
The best way to reduce stress in your life is to stop screwing up.
Roy Baumeister
