How does Cognitive Bias affect Projects and Project Management? (2024)

Cognitive Bias is a systematic error in thinking that often is a result of holding onto one’s preferences or beliefs regardless of contrary information. Some of these biases are related to memory, attention, emotions, motivations or other mental mistakes. Cognitive bias is not always a negative thing – it is believed that many of these biases can serve an adaptive purpose allowing us to make decisions quickly when timeliness is more valuable than accuracy. Sometimes it is necessary for people to take mental shortcuts while living in a complicated world.However, cognitive bias can distort your thinking during project planning. If a team integrates their cognitive bias into the planning and execution of a project – they may be making processing errors, inaccurate judgments and short-sighted decisions.

The notion of cognitive biases was first introduced by psychologists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman in 1972. Their research paper “Judgement Under Uncertainty Heuristics and Biases” was published in 1974 is a landmark in the history of psychology. Professor Kahnerman was awarded a Nobel Prize in 2002 after further developing the ideas and applying them to economics. A continually evolving list of cognitive biases has been identified over the last 50 years of research on human judgment and decision-making in cognitive science, social psychology, and behavioral economics.

Some types of cognitive bias that can distort your decision making are:

Anchoring Effect:This is the tendency to rely too heavily on the very first piece of information you learn. Most projects are not static. You can begin with a clear scope and a well defined charter but new information can add scope creep. As a Project Manager you need to constantly be looking at all stages of the project and processing new information as it comes in. This may include modifying the project or changing the project schedule. While changing a project is more work – sometimes you need to be flexible to deliver the correct result.

Confirmation Bias: This is when we focus on information that only confirms existing preconceptions. Example “We did weeks of testing -- this project go-live will have absolutely no issues” An assumption like this could lead to not having the appropriate staff on hand or not being prepared if things go wrong. Sometimes as Project Managers we need to look for additional risk and be prepared for unexpected outcomes.

Attentional Bias: The tendency to pay attention to some items while simultaneously ignoring others. This is very easy to do on a project. When you need to focus on many factors like scope, cost, time and effort, it is easy to focus on one piece of a project while another part of the project is overlooked. If you are working on a large project there are many moving parts and it can be difficult to keep track of every item. However a small problem if left ignored too long could escalate into a show-stopper for your entire project. Being detail oriented as a project manager is an important way to keep a project on it’s timeline.

Sunk Cost Fallacy: This is the reasoning that further investment is warranted on the fact that the resources already invested will be lost otherwise. This can also be called “throwing good money after bad”. The idea is that once we’ve invested time and money in something we become far less likely to abandon it, even once it is clear that the project will ultimately fail. As Project Managers we have all seen a project that went wrong. It can be hard to stop working on something after you have spent time and money on it, but not all projects succeed. Sometimes a crucial job of a project manager is to see when a project is not going to be successful and to accept and manage that outcome.

As a project leader, it proves beneficial to occasionally step back and reflect on the potential presence of cognitive biases in your planning and execution, considering that various types of cognitive bias exist. Allowing cognitive biases to heavily influence your decision-making process can result in irrational choices and introduce unnecessary risks to your projects. Another opportune moment to assess bias arises when conducting "Lessons Learned" reviews for completed projects. Through a critical examination of potential cognitive biases that may have inadvertently influenced the project, valuable insights can be gained.

By gaining a better understanding of cognitive bias, you can enhance your abilities as a project leader. This understanding enables you to identify and learn from mistakes, potentially avoiding their repetition in the future.