Have you ever made a bad decision? I’m sure I have but I don’t think I’ll be owning up to them here! The point I’m making is that people who make decisions aren’t always making the best decisions. And part of that reason is bias. No one is immune to it; the best we can do is call it out and be aware that it is happening.
I was asked to talk about bias in decision making at a university recently so I thought I’d summarise some of my key thoughts on the topic here to share with you.
Biases are cognitive shortcuts, often subconscious, that impact decision-making. And research has shown that there are lots of them. I read a few papers in Project Management Journal that pointed to many biases being identified. The key ones that I wanted to call out are these.
Confirmation Bias
This is where you seeking information that supports pre-existing beliefs. For example, only looking at data that supports your conclusions, or data from successful projects and ignoring data sets from unsuccessful projects. In daily life, this might be looking out for a particular type of car and then seeing it everywhere.
Anchoring Bias
This is where your future thoughts and opinions are anchored around a particular number. For example, if you’re talking about pricing a product and someone says it should retail for £50, you might get suggestions of setting the price at £40 or £60 but it’s unlikely that anyone is going to suggest £300 as the group has been anchored around the first number they heard.
Sunk Cost Fallacy
Bent Flyvbjerg calls this escalation of commitment, which is where you justify increased cost in a project even though it isn’t performing to plan. In other words, people talk themselves into continuing a failing project because of the investment that will be ‘wasted’ if they stop now.
Optimism Bias
Haven’t we all been guilty of this? It’s where you underestimate risks and overestimate project success. We all think our estimates are realistic even when past experience shows that we need to add buffer time.
Groupthink
When a group agrees with something, dissenting voices aren’t heard with the same volume. There is pressure to conform to collective opinions, even if you don’t truly agree. Diverse groups tend to make better decisions because they bring diverse experience and opinions.
Status Quo Bias
This is where people prefer familiar approaches over innovative solutions. I think there is also an opposite to this that I have – I’d rather use new tech and explore options and learn a different tool than use the old boring tool I’ve used before. Although this is not a good thing and means I have to spend a lot more time preparing for presentations because I’m trying out new gadgets or software that I haven’t used previously!
Bias contributing to project outcomes
You don’t have to look far to see examples of the sunk cost fallacy or optimism bias in public sector projects.
But there are examples of where bias has contributed to positive outcomes – or rather, structured decision making processes let people regularly challenge assumptions to avoid getting stuck with inappropriate solutions. I asked ChatGPT for examples of bias leading to project success and it could only come up with Toyota’s lean production system actively combating bias through data drive decision making. Maybe you have other examples from your experience – if so, leave them in the chat below please!
Overcoming bias
So what can we do about it?
- Encourage diverse perspectives: keep a focus on structured debate and let the dissenting voices be heard!
- Use data: seek out evidence that will provide impartial inputs
- Externally validate data and solutions: can you use external data reference sets or focus groups to confirm (or reject) your position?
- Consider failure: what does failure look like and what might lead you there? Pre-mortems are worth a go to discuss all that before you get started.
- Reassess the business case: keep the business case under review so you avoid throwing good money after bad.
Bias is inherent in how humans navigate decision making, but it’s manageable if you are open to talking about it and thinking about ways to reduce it. What’s one bias you’ll watch out for in your own decision-making?
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