A couple weeks ago I told my cousin Eileen that things were slow and almost boring. But, to my credit I did say that when February started that would all change. Oh boy, has it.
It isn’t – old 1st term with MOB/coordinating the Summer Ball busy – but things are moving pretty quickly. Thanks to Opera Consulting screwing Grant and I, our second year project is very much still in doubt (getting a little closer), projects galore here at NYU and a great little project I’m working with my father on make for a pretty busy time. Not frantic, nor ridiculous but that may come in a few weeks.
The title is more than just a saying. Thanks to a super-cold wave moving through the Midwest and toward the East coast things have been damn cold here. The high today was 24 F, low was in the single digits.
What else? I’m into one of these modes where when I’m out on the town or in class I think of great posts (it’s my blog, they’re all great posts :), but by the time I get home – the idea is gone or has become boring.
Today in my Judgement and Decision Making class came one of those moments. The professor was talking about the {delay in writing while I look up the correct word} Self-Serving Biases. The concept is fairly simple. People attribute success to themselves and failure to other people.
I did great on the test because I studied a lot.
I did poorly on the test because it was difficult.
When a class of high school students were surveyed about their social abilities, 89% said they were above average, while 0% said they were below average. Garrison Keillor would be proud.
The Bias that really got my attention was called the Planning Bias. Essentially, it means that when asked to estimate how long something will take, how much it will cost or how much effort is involved we will most often under-estimate. But, when asked to ‘unpack’ the concept such as asking what key things that are involved in the project the estimates get much better.
The part that bothers me about this isn’t that we under-plan but we do it in a scientifically significant way when if we just thought about the idea for a second our estimates would be better. Scary stuff.
Now, I’ve just spent far too much time on this riff – did some laundry, wrote some emails in between – so now, the real question is – who do I blame???
Why do we typically underestimate? From my experience, we perceive that most of those above us who will be receiving our estimates will want the deliverables as soon as possible and as cheap as possible. We don’t want to let ourselves admit, or seed the idea in our managers, that we’re not capable of achieving great things. Even when “achieving that great thing” is wrapped around a plan that has no basis in reality.
Again, from my experience, what managers ultimately want is the best possible result in the most efficient manner. “Most efficient” doesn’t always equate to the initial estimates of cheapest or quickest either. Often times, the quickest or cheapest path to delivery will no doubt be followed by a second effort to correct the deficiencies found in the original caused by the corner cutting paths. This leads to additional time and money spent that could have been avoided by doing the thing right to begin with.
Too many take your discussed biases to the extreme, to the detriment of the outputs. There’s nothing wrong with confidence or belief in one’s abilities – it’s a strong characteristic and an asset. Unfortunately, managing this characteristic to maximize it’s value rather than detracting from the reality of a scenario is the challenge – a challenge that too many people fail at all day, every day.
It’s as if you were in the class with me. Part of the reason for the lesson was to get ‘us future managers’ to recognise this problem
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