Listen to What You Cannot See

Ian Whittingham- January 25, 2016

You can find this article and many others at http://www.projectmanagement.com.

Stop. Look. Listen. A formula for safety, learned as an infant, when crossing the road. But that three-step process is almost a life lesson in itself, one that any project manager, whether seasoned or novice, can learn from. At its heart is a simple but important imperative: “Pay attention! Your safety depends on it.”

Life is full of events that may endanger us. Projects, as a part of (our) life, are no different. But those dangers–or risks, as project managers call them–may not be as easy to detect as the ones lurking unseen around street corners when crossing the road. But we can become aware of their presence if we listen for them with the right kind of attentiveness.

Be more attentive

Arrest. Gather. Focus. Whoever formulated theS top-Look-Listen mantra for crossing the road understood the fundamental aspects of human cognition, of how we take in sensory data and turn it into information we can then use to make decisions in risky environments.

Stop. The first step prepares us by arresting our attention. We must stop whatever we are doing and attend to the present moment. The act of stopping is a demarcation, a conscious action that detaches us from the distraction of current preoccupation. It primes us for the next step.

Look. This is the process of gathering information, information we will use to arrive at a decision and determine whether to proceed or not with our course of action. The act of looking is a discriminating one. As we gather information, we evaluate between that which we believe is useful and relevant and that which appears ambiguous or irrelevant to our need.

Listen. We must be vigilant to what we may have missed by simply looking. What is happening around the corner, off stage, hidden from view? What are we not seeing? We must sustain and deepen our attentiveness, and listen out for what we cannot see. We must focus on those silent risks that lurk out of sight.

There are very many useful things we can teach someone who is new to project management, tried and tested techniques and best practices. But the most valuable things can only be acquired through the experience of doing them. So, drawing on our own experience of managing projects, what advice–what learning–could we pass on to a novice to help them better manage their projects?

“Be more attentive” sounds like a piece of mind-expanding Zen wisdom rather than practical project management advice. On projects, very many things compete for our attention. So it begs the question, “Be attentive to what, exactly?”

A decision is a commitment to a specific course of action. The resulting action is a pivot point that moves a project forward in a particular direction. The direction taken will have, as its objective, a desired outcome (a.k.a. the project’s result). Decisions may therefore be considered rational to the extent that they support a project’s desired outcome.

Rational decision making is supported by various tools and techniques that create an objective environment in which the decision is validated. But the underlying driver for any decision is to achieve a desired outcome. It is often this impulse–to achieve a desired outcome, and not the rational basis–that influences how decisions are made. And this is what we need to attend to. We need to be aware of where and how project decisions are exposed to the influence of irrational bias.

Cognitive bias

In calculating or evaluating the outcome of an action, we all draw on our common, inherent ability to apply mental shortcuts to speed up the process and arrive at a judgement or decision. Since the mid-1970s, how we apply these mental shortcuts and their consequence on the decisions we make has received much attention, most notably from Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman in his best-selling book, Thinking, Fast and Slow.

While heuristics, as these mental shortcuts are known, are deeply ingrained in our ability to solve problems, they also createcognitive bias–that is, they create a propensity that may skew our decision making to favor one approach or solution over another. For the most part, the effects of such bias may not significantly influence the outcome of an action or decision. But sometimes, the consequences for projects can be catastrophic (something I wrote about in March 2009).

At the very least, someone new (or not so new) to managing a project should pay close attention to how decisions affecting the project outcome are arrived at and, in particular, the basis from which those decisions are derived. What follows is not intended to be a comprehensive list of project-impacting cognitive biases, but simply a representative sample to raise awareness of how these may manifest themselves in a project.

“I confirm that...”

Seeking and affirming confirmation is a key driver for all decision making. So we assume that if the facts and data presented appear sufficiently objective, we can use them to affirm the validity of our decision. This reasoning assumes a priori that we already know what facts or data count as confirmation. So if we need confirmation to move forward with a particular course of action, then we will seek out the facts and data that support that view. This is known as confirmation bias.

Confirmation requires that we are selective as to what does and does not count as valid evidence to proceed. This is not to say that in seeking confirmation we are being irrational agents. Very often, the language affirming the basis for a decision appears to point to its rational basis. “Our data corroborate earlier findings...,” “The tests certified that...,” “We have authenticated the results...” But what may be irrational in this, and may skew our judgement, is the need we feel to affirm confirmation. And in being selective as to what data or facts may count as valid confirmation, we may also draw on other cognitive biases.

“Don’t we have what we need now?”

It has been consistently observed that we give more weight and importance to information that we have just received than to other, older data or facts. If we are evaluating the results of a test, we often assign more credence to the latest data points than to earlier ones. Recency bias favors information that is most recently available to us.

“Our latest results show us...,” “The current data indicates...,” “The most recent tests point to...” When a decision demands urgency of action, recency bias can become a trigger for affirming a decision. It provides the most up-to-date basis on which to base our decision. Its confirmatory authority derives from its immediacy.

Availability biasis a related bias in which we favor information that is most readily available or easily accessible to us over that of other data which may actually be more relevant or pertinent to the decision-making process, but which is harder to source or obtain.

Both recency bias and availability bias constrain the scope of a decision to a reduced or fixed set of supporting information. By default, they discount other facts or data that could provide other perspectives and lead to a different outcome. This is a key characteristic of all cognitive biases. Although they facilitate our ability to come to a decision quickly, in doing so a cognitive bias also point us toward a particular conclusion.

“We’ve made a significant investment in...”

Due to complexity and scale, many projects demand significant investment in technology and people to achieve their results. A budget represents the resources that a project is expected to consume over its lifetime. In so far as the consumption of the budget creates the expected value for which the project was undertaken, we often refer to the budget as theproject’s investment.

The problem with this view–of how resources are allocated and used by projects–is in the words value and investment and, in particular, the relationship between the two. Certainly value cannot be created without investment. But the fact that we have invested in something does not necessarily mean that value has been created. However, we sometimes act as if we believe that it has.

“We’ve made a considerable investment in...,” “This significant expenditure has enabled...,” “This is an important asset...” The language that expresses sunk cost bias places great emphasis on the idea of inherent value as the justification for continued investment in a course of action when the economic facts may point to the opposite conclusion. (For this reason, it is also alternatively referred to as escalation of commitment bias, where the perceived value of continuing to do the same thing is disproportionate to the actual cost.)

“We can’t possibly stop now. Look at what we’d be throwing away.” What impels this bias is loss aversion. Despite the fact that we may no longer be able to derive the benefit we expected from past expenditure or consumption of resources, we nevertheless believe that we will lose the value of our investment (sic.) if we abandon the course of action we have committed ourselves to.

Despite contrary data that may disprove the financial case for continuing, sunk cost bias can introduce inertia into investment decisions and, like all cognitive biases, frames our perspective to present a slant-eyed view of how we should proceed.

Stop. Look. Listen.

As part of our inherited mental toolkit, cognitive bias is inescapable. In fact, it is indispensible to our decision-making processes. But it also allows for error to enter via the back door into our decisions if we are unaware of its presence. In the same way that project risks and assumptions are documented, and as a matter of best practice, project decisions–and the basis on which those decisions are made–should also be recorded.

In doing so, we should pay close attention to the language used–and the thought processes that those words represent–in coming to a decision. Because the language used to frame a decision may tell us much about the presence of cognitive bias and the extent to which it might have influenced a decision in a specific way. So, my advice to someone new to project management is to always stop, look and listen when coming to a decision and attend to the different ways in which project decisions can be made.

About the Author

whittington ianIan Whittingham, PMP is a Program Manager in the Business Transformation group of a leading global news and information company. The views expressed here are his own. You may contact the author directly at ian.whittingham@thomsonreuters.com.

You can find this article and many others at http://www.projectmanagement.com.