Behavioral bias

Abstract

Behavioral science has witnessed an explosion in the number of biases identified by behavioral scientists, to more than 200 at present. Bent Flyvbjerg identifies the most important behavioral biases for project management, including political and cognitive bias. Specifically, the chapter focuses on strategic misrepresentation, optimism bias, uniqueness bias, the planning fallacy, overconfidence bias, and the base-rate fallacy. Each bias is defined and its impacts on project management are explained, with examples. Base-rate neglect is identified as a primary reason that projects underperform. This is supported by the presentation of the most comprehensive set of base rates that exists in project management scholarship, from 2,062 projects. Finally, reference class forecasting, premortems, and decision hygiene are recommended as cures to bias.