CHAPTER 11
The Psychology and Politics of Estimating
Estimation errors arise from three sources: political, psychological, and technical (process-related). Internal politics plays a large role in such errors because corporate planners often intentionally make unrealistic estimations to get their projects approved. Optimism bias, planning fallacy, the rule of pi, and other cognitive biases also skew estimates. A number of simple techniques can improve estimations: avoid making wild guesses, do reality checks, collect relevant historical data, and perform independent assessments.
How Do We Make Estimates?
We now come to one of the most important topics in project decision analysis and project management: estimations. How many books have been written ...
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