Planning fallacy

People are overly optimistic when planning. They estimate a project will take much shorter than it then actually will.

This is exacerbated when people are eager to get an approval based on the time-estimate. In this case, decision makers should get an outside view to mitigate this. "Reference class forecasting" (looking at actual data of how long a similar project actually took) can also help with this.


Tags: personal productivity

ID: 2021-0117-1116

References:

  • Kahneman, 2013. Thinking, Fast and Slow (p. 250)

If you want to discuss this note, send me a message on Twitter.