What is a planning error and how to evaluate the timing

What is a planning error

Over the past three years, I painted five rooms at home. I start with the bedroom and it was planned that driving with her for a week. However, the final touch made only after a month.

Think, move to the second room, I have provided to her painting of a month? And here and there. I was sure once already stuffed his hand, then, just to finish the weekend, a maximum - to the next. But I have a month left again. As in each of all the other rooms. Except the kitchen - at her it took even more time.

Each time, ready to paint another room, I waited for a week or two everything will be ready. Experience told me that I would not manage in less than a month. However, to give up confidence in the fact that much in this time it definitely will go faster, it was difficult.

In this presumptuous, because we underestimate the need for us to solve problems of time, has a name: planning error. This concept is at the end of the 70s entered

Intuitive Prediction: Biases and Corrective Procedures psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky.

Scientists explained that when planning people often ignore their previous experience. In my case it was the fact that the room painting every time I needed a whole month. Usually, we focus only on the task at hand: it is a small room, therefore, will have to paint it for long.

Daniel Kahneman tells in detail about this in book "Think slow... Make up your mind quickly." He argues that the errors in planning are usually associated with two things:

1. We do not consider how much time it took to perform similar tasks in the past.
2. We assume that not be faced with difficulties, which will cause delays.

What causes an incorrect estimate of the time

According to the dataSuccess in Disruptive Times Project Management Institute, only slightly more than half of all projects are completed on schedule.

But one thing - to underestimate the amount of time that you need to paint the room (it just takes you a little bit of inconvenience). It's quite another - to make the same mistake in the assessment of work tasks and projects. Here, the consequences could be much more serious.

At best, this will lead to the fact that you or your team will have to work overtime. At worst - to a lack of budget, small profits, bosses and customers dissatisfaction.

How to assess the problem correctly

You need to stop planning, trusting intuition alone. It is better to use special equipment.

1. Build on previous experience

Psychologists recommend that Kahneman and TverskyIntuitive Prediction: Biases and Corrective Procedures: Before work should not just assess what needs to be done, and more, and to estimate how much time is usually spent on these tasks.

For example, you need to create a new feature for mobile applications - Find out how much time to spend on your team has a similar problem. Do you want to write a blog post length 4000 words - get data about how many hours or days you took last time.

If you work alone, the easiest way to collect this information - use attachment to track time. Use it with different types of tasks, and then use the ready-made reports.

For activities in the team useful project management software. Most of them use several methods of data collection, such as accounting of the actual operating time and the construction of a Gantt chart.

2. Ask the other to assess your problem

In 1994, the journal of the American Psychological Association 'Personality and Social Psychology, "published the resultsExploring the «Planning Fallacy»: Why People Underestimate Their Task Completion Times five studies conducted by Roger Bühler, Dale Griffin and Michael Ross.

They confirmed that people often make the mistake of planning described by Kahneman and Tversky. But I found something else: we often misjudge the costs of its own problems, but it can be nice to predict how long it takes someone else.

Scientists asked participants to suggest how long it takes to perform a certain task to another person. When you answer those more often relied on past experience. And even when it was not, their estimates were much more rational than the conclusions of those who had to perform the task.

This is because we usually are very optimistic attitude to their abilities. And much more objective when it comes to someone else. So instead of trying to assess the problem on their own, ask a friend or colleague to do it for you.

3. Make a date range, and consider the possibility of delays

There are well-known well-known - things that we know that we know them. There are also known unknowns - things that we know that they do not know. But there are still unknown, unknown - these are things that we do not know we do not know them.

Donald Rumsfeld, US politician

On this quote often cited in project management. To allow for unknown unknowns mentioned by Rumsfeld, managers use the so-called cone of uncertainty. It is designed to image a range of time, which may require task.

When you start work on the project, you are a little more about it you know. Therefore, the actual time required to complete it, can vary greatly with the forecast. Do you think that the work will take two days, and may actually need eight. Or just a few hours.

But in the course of this process range is reduced. But to say exactly how much time you need, you will be able only at the end - when project completed.

And yet, the cone of uncertainty allows us to give a more accurate estimate. If you know little about the upcoming project, divide the estimated time work for four to find the lower limit of the range, and multiply by the same amount in order to determine the upper limit. That will have, for example, from 1 to 16 days.

If such a large range does not suit you, use the account only the upper limit - then, presumably, the work will take 16 days. This is not the exact number, but most likely, it is closer to reality than your initial estimate.

4. Rate task to three points

This method will be more objective. For each task, you need to evaluate:

• the best scenario;
• worst-case scenario;
• the most likely scenario.

The first number is likely to coincide with your initial estimate. Evaluation of the most likely scenario may be based on empirical data that you have. But in assessing the worst need to consider how much time it would take if things go wrong.

Having three numbers, calculate an average value. For example, if the best scenario - for three days, the likely - five days, and the worst - nine, just add 3 + 5 + 9 = 17. Then divide that number by three. It turns out an average of 5.67 days - this is your forecast for the required time.

5. Calculate the error coefficient

Steve Pavlina author books "The course of personal development for smart people" recommends count rate how much you are mistaken in planning. In the future, this number will be used for all your tasks.

Assess the time for several casesThat you need to perform in the near future. Record your assumptions. After finishing the work, note how much you spent in total.

Add up all the scheduled time together. Do the same with the actual. Now all the actual time is divided into an initial assessment - you get the right balance.

For example, you have calculated that to perform multiple tasks require 12 hours. But in the end we spent 15. error ratio: 15/12 = 1.25. This means that the task took you 25% more time than you planned.

Now always multiply their initial assessment on the resulting error rate - and they will be more accurate.

6. Evaluate in the most unproductive time of day

American analyst and author of the business literature Daniel Pink in his book "Taymhaking. As science helps us to do everything on time, "he plunged into research on our chronotype - internal clock.

He studied how they affect our well-being throughout the day. And I found that chronotype not only control our physical and mental activity, and more and determine what time of day we are most creative when and tend to the positive and negative thoughts.

Pink refers to a studyDiurnal and Seasonal Mood Vary with Work, Sleep and Daylength Across Diverse Cultures Scott Golder and Michael Macy, who analyzed the mood of people on Twitter messages. They found that the user typically positions malopozitivny precisely in periods of recession productivity.

For most people, this decline comes in the middle of the day, right after lunch. According to Golder and Macy's unlikely that at this time you will have a good mood. That this can help you avoid excessive confidence and optimism, and in the end - to plan more effectively.

Thus, the essence of the latter method - to assess the problem, while on the productivity decline. It is about six hours after waking. But you can just wait until enough sense of dispersal and fatigue.

The outcome of the check that you are closer to reality, planning their time in this way.

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Very understanding of planning mistakes will help you assess the problem properly. Maybe you do not get to control their tendency to overestimate their own abilities. But if you are aware of the effect of excessive optimism, and try to reduce this effect, it will become much better manage your time.

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