The problem with “You can’t finish a project this long” is that is doesn’t come with a reason like “You haven’t set aside enough time” or “Planning fallacy!” or “You’ll have to trade off against more worthwhile use of your time” which are all useful to address. I’m describing a kind of thought that doesn’t feel like troubleshooting but more like anti-self efficacy, where the problem isn’t the plan, it’s that the plan has you in it.
I like pre-mortems, outside view, etc, so I’m not denigrating the technique, just flagging an error mode.
The problem with “You can’t finish a project this long” is that is doesn’t come with a reason like “You haven’t set aside enough time” or “Planning fallacy!” or “You’ll have to trade off against more worthwhile use of your time” which are all useful to address. I’m describing a kind of thought that doesn’t feel like troubleshooting but more like anti-self efficacy, where the problem isn’t the plan, it’s that the plan has you in it.
I like pre-mortems, outside view, etc, so I’m not denigrating the technique, just flagging an error mode.