Thursday, February 16, 2012

The Planning Fallacy



Do we all experience the Fallacy on our work:
  • Overoptimistic in the time planning therefore underestimating time taken.
  • Overestimating the benefits
In 1979 a paper by Daniel Kahneman coined the term the Planning Fallacy.

It is a very real and measurable effect. Using a number of different subject areas from origami to tax returns. The tendency is to plan on the light side. Interestingly this only happens when we estimate our own work. When people uninvolved in the work are asked for estimates, they tend to over estimate.
No one really knows why, but vocalism is thought to be a candidate.

One curious observation is that people still tend to underestimate the task even if they have evidence from previous similar tasks.


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