Wayne Goulding’s Blog

Cognitive Biases

A totally rational person (enter Mr. Spock) would collect a lot of information, analyze many alternatives and only then arrive at the best decision.  However, what we typically do is ration our time by using shortcuts, like rules of thumb, past experiences, recent events, etc.; we satisfice.  Because we are not totally rational human beings, we have cognitive limitations.  These biases affect our perspectives, decisions and actions.  Everyone has them and most are based on our individual life experiences.  But wait, there’s more

One recent morning I was enjoying the company of my peers at the monthly PMI-Silicon Valley Chapter’s PMO Breakfast meeting.  As usual the conversation had degraded (a hardware perspective) to a discussion of software methodologies, that day specifically: When using Agile, how do you handle …?  Then out of the blue one of the participants threw a perspective on the table – “From the outset, all projects are doomed to failure.”  Interesting pronouncement!  My corollary; the PM’s role is to snatch projects from the jaws of defeat (?). But wait, there’s more