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

Blog, slides, references:

www.carsonpierce.comcarson@carsonpierce.com

@carsonpierce