“When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but creatures of emotion.”
Dale Carnegie
In his widely acclaimed book “Thinking, Fast and Slow” the Nobel prize winner Daniel Kahneman guides us to the comprehension of what psychologists have been studying for decades, the two “modes of thinking” that reside inside us: System 1, that operates automatically and quickly, emotionally, with little or no effort and no sense of voluntarily control, and System 2, that allocates attention and logic to the mental activities which demand it. The not-so-perfect interplay between these two systems is what makes us so ….human and rules the way we think, believe, behave, the position that we take when faced with challenges and problems, our perception of risks, the way we relate with others and the way we work. And (you may guess) System 1 is often dominant.
The management of key emotional, behavioural features and relationship forces is a topic to which all project management accreditation standards (PMI, PRINCE2, Agile etc) dedicate a great deal of attention in their syllabus. The “human factor” is clearly a feature that all project managers will have to learn to manage in order to be prepared to handle the “emotions” in their projects. This factor is pervasive in all projects, affecting the project manager (PM), the project team and the project stakeholders.
In a recent article published by Forbes it has been argued that:
“.. augmented tools will make Artificial Intelligence (AI) an obvious benefit to project managers going forward”……..
“….ever since humans have had people and projects to manage, we’ve had challenges keeping the projects on time, on budget, and people on task…”
“…over time, it seems likely that AI-enabled project management systems will be able to make the science of human behavior more concrete in various ways. A system that is capable of analyzing someone’s every move is likely to be more reliable in predicting actions or potential needs than an individual person might be.”
Ron Schmelzer,”AI In Project Management”, Forbes
This is certainly an interesting proposition – will logic replace emotion?
Waiting for the wider availability of those AI tools advocated by Forbes, let’s have a look in this article at the challenging dimension posed by cognitive biases on project management, in relation to the manifestations of System 1 for:
- the project manager,
- the project team and
- the project stakeholders.
1. The project manager
The PMI (Project Management Institute) has indicated that the top skills and competencies for an effective project manager should be “people skills”, like leadership, listening and negotiation. Therefore, a project manager should be well-versed in cognitive biases.
The cognitive biases are systematic patterns of deviation from normality or rationality in judgement typical of humans. They are the manifestation of the working of the Kahneman’s System 1. They are related to the way we select (or manage) information, how we process that information, how we remember past experiences, how we respond to dilemmas and complex situations and how we relate experiences and new information to define our stand and shape our decisions.
The challenge for the PM is mastering the huge number of these biases. I counted 122 decision-making, belief, and behavioral biases (see list of biases). But a key struggle for the PM will be, first of all, the management of ….own biases. Until the time comes when the PM will be replaced by an AI tool or a machine, the PM will continue to be the human being controlling the project…. yes, an optimistic, visionary and capable human being, but still a human being that will have to cope with own tricky System 1.
Apart for reading more about these biases and trying to identify them in the daily occurrences and experiences, I think that a greater understanding of the stages associated with morals and attitudes to change would be beneficial. The model often referred to in teamwork dynamics is the Kübler-Ross Change Curve (or also Kübler-Ross Model):
Change is a recurring feature in a project and the model above is often referred to in the analysis of team’s dynamics. I think it has importance also for the PM. The PM will go through these emotions often during the course of a project, either in relation to changes to the project schedule, unexpected events or in the relationships with the project team and the stakeholders. The Change Curve is a powerful model that can help an individual deal with changes and personal transitions.
The PM should try to relate own emotions to cognitive biases and to the various stages of the model. The model will help the PM understand how he/she will react to change, providing support during the change process and ultimately be beneficial to the leadership of the project and to the relationships with the team and the stakeholders.
2. The project team
Team building is well-known and studied. It focuses on team attitudes and teamwork and it is key in improving a project team’s performance. Once the PM has mastered his/her own biases, he/she will have to direct the attention to the understanding of project teamwork.
When dealing with group development and teamwork the model usually referred to is the Tuckmans’s Stages of Group Development:
The PM will have to manage individuals’ needs, issues and biases to develop the optimum team, going through the stages of team development. Individual issues have to be dealt with first (see table below). By being asked to take part in a project, the team members may have to deal with many changes, for example, to the personal routine, to personal objectives, aspirations, work pattern, introducing and forcing new relationships, exposing them to cultural clashes that may have not been prepared to accept, etc. The PM should always be mindful about the subtle manifestation of the individuals’ biases in the team dynamics, for example the “courtesy” bias, the “declinism”, “loss aversion” and the “groupthink”, to name only a few.
The emotional System 1 is difficult to control and cannot be switched off. For this reason, maybe techniques such as a careful use of rhetoric, metaphors, storytelling, analogies and sensory language might be useful in the management of the initial phase of the team bonding. Of course, working on the rationality of System 2 helps. Efforts should be directed to the identification of those “Team Actions” (see table above) that define each stage, manage them, sustaining the working of the rational System 2 to influence System 1 which will ultimately help the transition of the team to the norming/performing stage.
The PMI (Project Management Institute) states that often, because project teams are transient, this team development process is ignored. Time is always limited…Yet, many teams are in existence for months, sometimes years. The risk is that the team members expect the PM to take care of all the processes, they may take a back seat in the project, and this is a power trap for a PM.
The use of the Project Team Process might help the PM and the team identify what they need to discuss, to develop, and to sustain, leaving emotions aside.
3. The project stakeholders
Projects do not happen in a vacuum. They will serve a purpose in society, in the organisation and for the community. All PM accreditation standards have a module on stakeholder analysis, as the process of assessing a system, and potential changes to it, as the system relates to relevant and interested parties (the stakeholders).
Stakeholder analysis is a key part of project management. It is meant to be an analysis of an issue associated with a project deliverable consisting of weighing and balancing all of the competing demands on the project team/sponsoring organisation by each of those who have a claim on it, to arrive at the final course of action or ultimate benefits. A stakeholder analysis ensures that all affected will be considered.
The outcome from this analysis is used to assess how the “interests” of those stakeholders should be addressed in a project. Stakeholders are “mapped” also in “power/influence” grid in relation to the project. The task for the project team/PM is to ensure that the engagement is appropriate for the needs of each stakeholders’ group:
Very simplistically, for example, while it is important to ensure that the project meets the needs of the “Customers”, those with limited interest (“Crowd”) may need just to be kept informed, consulted or monitored.
But here is a new level of complication: in some fields the mapping above is too simplistic. Groups of stakeholders might not be so easily categorised. Groups might not be necessarily homogeneous and could have internal, conflicting views. For projects with an important social impact (such as those related to public policies, public services and/or facilities with public utility) or that have a social system component (for example, a project impacting the use of natural resources) psychological or social factors will have to be considered. Each stakeholder will have to be assessed so his/her own values and worldviews can be taken into consideration. These underlying variables (and cognitive biases!) are sometime difficult to discuss and, in many cases, may operate largely subconsciously within the individuals while the project progresses.
A new concept has been formulated, the Stakeholders Cognitive Mapping. This cognitive mapping may not be applicable to most of our projects, but, in my view, it is important to mention it as it is a clear recognition of how cognitive biases could affect the dynamics of a project, maybe in an unexpected and subtle manner.
Cognitive biases are what defines us as humans. The project manager will have to become well-versed in this subject as the “human factor” can profoundly affect the project management, with biases influencing the behaviour of the PM, driving the dynamics in the project team and also impacting the stakeholders’ views and acceptance of a project deliverable or outcome. The Daniel Kahneman’s book should be on the bedside table of all project managers!
Please do get in touch if you have comments or questions.
Marco Bottacini, Senior Portfolio Manager, GALVmed
The views and opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinion of GALVmed.
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