What a wonderful blog, I just discovered it. This is an old post so I am not sure if anyone is still following it. While I think the article raises some excellent points, I think it may be missing the forest for the trees. Perhaps due to bias :-).
For instance, the article states:
13% of subjects finished their project by the time they had assigned a 50% probability level;
19% finished by the time assigned a 75% probability level;
and only 45% (less than half!) finished by the time of their 99% probability level.
The conclusion then seems to be that everyone did a poor job of estimating. Maybe, maybe not. Why not instead question if their were other cognitive/behavioral factors at play? For example:
Procrastinating until the last moment to actually do the work (you have never heard of students doing that, have you?) :-). This is a common reason that no matter how long people are given to complete a task, they do not complete it on time, or do so at the last minute.
Parkinson’s law (work expands to fill the time available). The more time the students have, the more they will change the scope of work to make it impressive (it will turn into a longer paper, or they will obsess more over details).
These are just a few thoughts. I submit the opposite of the articles conclusion (without invalidating it). Most projects take longer than they have to because of cognitive/behavior issues. And here I will quote the blog mission statement:
“If we know the common patterns of error or self-deception, maybe we can work around them ourselves, or build social structures for smarter groups.”
And that is also the key to achieving faster and on/time projects, not just accepting that our planning is faulty and looking at past projects—many of those past projects likely took longer than they needed to because of cognitive bias.
As an architect and sometime builder, as an excellent procrastinator, I heartily concur with this comment.
The range of biases, psychological and ‘structural’ factors at work is wide. Here are a few:
‘tactical optimism’ : David Bohm’s term for the way in which humans overcome the (so far) inescapable assessment that; ‘in the long run, we’re all dead’. Specifically, within the building industry, rife with non-optimal ingrained conditions, you wouldn’t come to work if you weren’t an optimist. Builders who cease to have an optimistic outlook go and find other things to do.
maintaining flexibility has benefits: non-trivial projects have hidden detail. It often happens that spending longer working around the project—at the expense of straight-ahead progress—can lead to higher quality at the end, as delayed completion has allowed a more elegant/efficient response to inherent, but unforeseen problems.
self-application of pressure: as someone tending to procrastinate, I know that I sometimes use ambitious deadlines in order to attempt to manage myself—especially if I can advertise that deadline—as in the study
deadline/sanction fatigue: if the loss incurred for missing deadlines is small, or alternatively if it is purely psychological, then the ‘weight’ of time pressure is diminished with each failure.
I’m going to stop now, before I lose the will to live.
What a wonderful blog, I just discovered it. This is an old post so I am not sure if anyone is still following it. While I think the article raises some excellent points, I think it may be missing the forest for the trees. Perhaps due to bias :-).
For instance, the article states:
13% of subjects finished their project by the time they had assigned a 50% probability level;
19% finished by the time assigned a 75% probability level;
and only 45% (less than half!) finished by the time of their 99% probability level.
The conclusion then seems to be that everyone did a poor job of estimating. Maybe, maybe not. Why not instead question if their were other cognitive/behavioral factors at play? For example:
Procrastinating until the last moment to actually do the work (you have never heard of students doing that, have you?) :-). This is a common reason that no matter how long people are given to complete a task, they do not complete it on time, or do so at the last minute.
Parkinson’s law (work expands to fill the time available). The more time the students have, the more they will change the scope of work to make it impressive (it will turn into a longer paper, or they will obsess more over details).
These are just a few thoughts. I submit the opposite of the articles conclusion (without invalidating it). Most projects take longer than they have to because of cognitive/behavior issues. And here I will quote the blog mission statement: “If we know the common patterns of error or self-deception, maybe we can work around them ourselves, or build social structures for smarter groups.”
And that is also the key to achieving faster and on/time projects, not just accepting that our planning is faulty and looking at past projects—many of those past projects likely took longer than they needed to because of cognitive bias.
As an architect and sometime builder, as an excellent procrastinator, I heartily concur with this comment.
The range of biases, psychological and ‘structural’ factors at work is wide. Here are a few:
‘tactical optimism’ : David Bohm’s term for the way in which humans overcome the (so far) inescapable assessment that; ‘in the long run, we’re all dead’. Specifically, within the building industry, rife with non-optimal ingrained conditions, you wouldn’t come to work if you weren’t an optimist. Builders who cease to have an optimistic outlook go and find other things to do.
maintaining flexibility has benefits: non-trivial projects have hidden detail. It often happens that spending longer working around the project—at the expense of straight-ahead progress—can lead to higher quality at the end, as delayed completion has allowed a more elegant/efficient response to inherent, but unforeseen problems.
self-application of pressure: as someone tending to procrastinate, I know that I sometimes use ambitious deadlines in order to attempt to manage myself—especially if I can advertise that deadline—as in the study
deadline/sanction fatigue: if the loss incurred for missing deadlines is small, or alternatively if it is purely psychological, then the ‘weight’ of time pressure is diminished with each failure.
I’m going to stop now, before I lose the will to live.