Case file
Planning Fallacy
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- Not Enough Meaning
The charge
Planning fallacy is underestimating how long, costly, and messy future tasks will be even when similar tasks ran over before.
How it operates
The inside view focuses on the current plan and misses common delays, coordination costs, and hidden work.
Logged incidents
- Incident 01
A migration slated for two sprints takes four months.
- Incident 02
A renovation budget doubles after work starts.
- Incident 03
A board commits to a launch date before dependency mapping.
What to watch for
Ask: What happened on the last few projects of this type?
Recommended action
Use reference class forecasting and a premortem before setting commitments.
Known associates
- Telescoping EffectTelescoping effect is misremembering when past events happened, often pulling distant events closer and…
- Rosy RetrospectionRosy retrospection is remembering past experiences as better than they felt at the time.
- Hindsight BiasHindsight bias is the tendency to feel, after an outcome is known, that it was predictable all along.
- Outcome BiasOutcome bias is judging the quality of a decision mainly by its result instead of by the information and…
- Moral LuckMoral luck is judging people differently for similar choices because luck changed the eventual outcome.
- DeclinismDeclinism is seeing the past as better than it was and the future as likely worse than it will be.
Source of record