Organisations can turn strategy into action by using project management. Despite the increased investment in project management capabilities, many projects fail to achieve their goals.
This is the first article in a series that examines how optimism bias can kill projects from the beginning. It was originally introduced by Jeffrey Pinto in his paper “Lies, damned, and Project Plans”: Recurring human mistakes that can ruin project planning.
Skarbek often jumps into situations where key client projects are in crisis. Is it malpractice in project management or environmental factors that led to failure such as lack of commitment, sponsorship, engagement, and commitment?
Pinto’s seven deadly Sins offer some insight for project managers who are quick to point out that their projects were well managed, but that external factors conspired against them. These insights can make it question whether the profession really got it right.
Research on optimism bias suggests that we may be wired to fear disappointment. Animals also seem to display the same behavior, so it could be an evolutionary advantage.
We expect positive outcomes more often than they actually are.
It is interesting that we still expect confirmation in the face disconfirming information. This suggests that there is an ongoing process for filtering out negative information. This means that disappointment can be delayed until a later, but inevitable reckoning.
This bias is adaptive and has been selected by evolution to benefit our mental and physical health. There is increasing evidence that it can be. Disappointment delayed helps us function.
But does the evolutionary benefit outweigh the business benefit? These psychological responses may have saved our survival, but they may not be as helpful in navigating the business world today.
Pinto’s research reveals three problems that optimism bias can lead to in project planning.
Team members of a project will underestimate the time it takes to complete their tasks, but not others.
Teams will often place too much emphasis on time modeling activities in the current project plan, and neglect to use previous experience, even though those experiences may be very similar.
Past failures are often attributed to external causes, and the lessons learned are discarded as irrelevant to the current project.
We have seen this issue often lead to clients becoming stuck in the incremental adjustments required to an initial timing anchor. It is very rare for a project to be initiated and planned by our clients without a launch time already associated with it.
It is very difficult to let go of that stake in the ground. Even when detailed plans are made, it is always referred back to the original launch date.
This can adversely affect the validity of plans that have been meticulously crafted. Every task estimate is made with an incorrect anchor in mind, and the plan is therefore distorted away from more objective estimates.
One client, for example, would always measure a project back to its original launch estimate, regardless of how far back it was or how extensive the scope had changed.
This meant that even though the project was only 5 years old, the bias of the initial anchor continued to derail the timeline accuracy of the current team and be a constant drag on morale.
How can you get rid of these optimism biases in your projects? These are some of our suggestions, which can all be incorporated into our ‘integrated planning approach’.
Let the group challenge each other’s time estimates. It may take some skilled facilitation to get everyone to cooperate.
