The pessimists are the true optimists
When it is down to human-made forecast of complex project delivery time-lines, you’re always going to be wrong. But how much wrong is a topic of particular interest, especially in business. Say you expect to deliver a project in 60 days. You know it’s almost sure it will take longer (Murphy’s law are quite right). How longer, it depends from the attitude of the person that produced the forecast, or the commitment.
We tend to split people into optimists and pessimists, and think that the reality somehow lies in between them. Quite wrongly. I remember having read of a scientifically sound experiment where two groups of project managers have been asked to forecast a project delivery deadline. One group was made up of optimists, another of pessimists. The former forecasted something like 24 weeks, the latter 44.
Have a guess? The project was delivered in approximately 54 weeks by both teams. The pessimists weren’t that much pessimists. At the end the day, they proved quite optimistic. The optimists? I would probably call them the “dreamers”.
I tend to be in the pessimists camp, and to my best forecasts, I tend to add some cushion. I rarely prove wrong.
Apparently, this is down to the false perception we have of our own skills and capabilities, on top of the complexity of many topics. We fail to recognize the real complexity of the undertaking, and we tend to overestimate our ability to deliver.
Bear in mind: the next time a project manager commits to a certain timeframe, double it up if you know he is an optimist, add 30% if you know he is a pessimist. You shouldn’t be too far from reality.
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