Project managers must avoid vacillation as much as hasty and error-prone decisio n-making.

Unfortunately, automatic mental quirks called "heuristics" and "biases " make these conflicting demands more difficult. Thus, to do well, a project man ager must firmly command traditional decision-making techniques, and create awar eness of these unconscious, deeply engrained human traits. Traditional methodolo gies facilitate decisions with analysis and dispassionate facts. However, unless the project manager avoids cognitive heuristics and biases, he will inevitably suffer the consequences when seemingly objective decisions prove subjective in t he end. Hence, good project management training teaches both, the clinical metho dologies and the human elements of decision making. Heuristics are natural and often beneficial cognitive functions. However, they c ome with risky implications for project managers, and three are particularly dam aging to objectivity: anchoring, availability and representativeness. They can t urn common sense into irrational decision-making, which can derail a project and the project manager's successful career. Anchoring occurs when a project manage r adjusts an estimate closer to a number he previously heard or saw. For example , he may not charge the reasonable and necessary $20,000 for a change order afte r he witnessed the sponsor telling another vendor that "$2,000 is a lot of money !" Even if the project manager consciously knows that the two estimates are unre lated, unconscious anchoring has happened. The availability heuristic makes sali ent memories and current events irrationally important. For example, if the proj ect manager saw a contractor fall off a scaffold, he may procure additional safe ty training, even though the likelihood of another accident has statistically no t increased. Finally, the representativeness heuristic can also affect projects. This occurs when a decision uses a small sample to generalize a situation. For example, if a welder has made 3 consecutive bad welds, the project manager may d ecide that the welder produces inferior work, even though careful consideration would have shown 800 perfect preceding welds. Superior project management traini ng teaches students objective decision-making techniques and illustrates techniq ues to mitigate heuristic distortions. Project management seminars should also discuss unconscious biases that can coun teract logic but appear as common sense. For example, the framing bias attribute s irrational importance to the word choice that describes a decision. Would a pr oject manager rather get a sure savings of $10,000 or a 50/50 chance to make ano ther $20,000? The question may be mathematically identical, but researchers have proven that people prefer a sure thing over a bet and detest a loss twice as mu ch as they desire a windfall, so the framing bias can be a powerful influencer. A well-rounded project manager must also learn about the self-serving bias, whic h tends to attribute successes to one's abilities and to attribute one's failure s to external factors. The opposite also happens: other's failures relate to the ir abilities and their successes to external factors. The confirmation bias make s project managers involuntarily rely on data that supports a desired result and reaffirms past choices. Imagine a project manager being considered for promotio n: He has done well in the past, so he feels that the positive data that substan tiates a well-performing project is more realistic than the (statistically impor tant) trouble-signs in the financial report; he may leave the root-cause unmitig ated because of an irrational reliance on the positive data. Advanced project ma nagement seminars includes scenarios that demonstrate how these biases can turn into failures, especially because they manifest as feelings, common sense, intui tions, and even strong preferences, convictions or beliefs. Anyone involved with projects has experienced the negative consequences from the se heuristics and biases. Good project seminars can convert this abstract theore tical science into useful tools, thus improving job skills and success. To be su re, project managers need not know how to attribute an academic heuristic or bia s to every event. But, the project manager should learn to recognize hidden moti ves in decision-making before they cause problems for the organization, the stak eholders, or the project manager's career. Hoffmann Conseho's andragogy-based tr

aining approach merges awareness of these heuristics and biases with the traditi onal elements of project management. The Project-Lab approach allows participant s to safely review, reflect, and discuss motivations and decisions before taking them into the real world. This practice creates knowledge that the recipients r emember when appropriate. Alone, neither heuristics or bias training, nor knowledge and skill with analyti cal tools will guarantee good decisions. However, together they facilitate bette r decision-making and enhance leadership. The resulting performance improvements bring real financial benefits, and organizations searching for project manageme nt training with a solid return on their investment should select courses that i ncorporate these human elements in its traditional how-to syllabus. To succeed c onsistently, project managers must know the impacts of imperceptible psychologic al heuristics and biases. by Roland Hoffmann Click on www.conseho.com to learn more about state-of-the-art project management training from Hoffmann Conseho (HC). Roland Hoffmann, who founded HC five years ago after 20 years leading projects in technology, construction, marketing, ope rations and finance. His specialty is high-risk projects, where he prevents fail ure or helps to recover from one. He has honed his project management skills thr ough practice and study, including a PMP certification. He has led project teams with over 70 people on four continents, has experienced spectacular successes a nd remarkable failures, and gleaned invaluable knowledge from each. HC offers a variety of basic and advanced Project Management courses. Hoffmann Conseho also offers 2-hour Skillshare mini-workshops in San Antonio and Austin for $25 to $50 . HC favors the action-focused and experiential Project-Lab approach, which uses andragogy principles to teach adult skills. HC training courses improve job per formance because they use andragogy (adult learning science). Click on http://ww w.conseho.com/project-management-training-andragogy/ to learn more.