Game of roulette: Software development effort estimation - II,How ‘knowing software effort estimation is more about biases and human misjudgment’ can help Part 2: Authority & Availability Bias

Earlier in Part 1 I talked about Anchor bias at play in bid management, Agile poker planning and a sales situation. In part II of this series I share my opinion on Authority and Availability bias at play in estimations.

Authority bias is the tendency to attribute greater accuracy to the opinion of an authority figure (unrelated to its content) and be more influenced by that opinion. It is a conditioned bias that make us ‘believe’ individuals dressed as  doctors talking about a particular toothpaste brand, people seeming like police, lawyers or government authorities talking about law, Senior or management though non-technical make better technology or project choices !  In order to make short cuts  & make easier choices as humans we implicitly follow authority.     

Have you seen the technology choices and solution direction changed because the management wanted Jack to review the solution ?  ‘Mr Jack of all  ‘ lacks mastery of the specific subject, but the CEO of the private company trusts Mr Jack. I am sure you would have heard ‘because I said so’ line  if you are in the software industry for few years ! 

Authority bias can influence people to some really irrational acts like in the example of the famous milgram experiment. Here the test subjects under the influence of authority were willing to administer 450 V electric shock their victims. In software estimations when estimates are under the influence of Authority and estimated numbers anchored to the whims of the authority the estimations become highly irrational.

Mitigating Authority Bias

Authority bias is actually a useful human shortcut when used to our advantage. ‘There is no point re inventing the wheel' it makes sense to follow the direction of individuals who have built trust mastering a specific topic within an organisation. This helps improving quality and time for taking key decisions. The problem usually is when we succumb to the bias in situation that is not to our advantage. Building trust with individuals and within organisation is a way to mitigate authority bias.

Availability Bias

The availability heuristic is a mental shortcut that relies on immediate examples that come to a given person's mind when evaluating a specific topic, concept, method or decision.

When was the estimation sheet used in your organisation created or updated ?  Chances are high you are using the standardised estimation sheet created 5 years back. Availability and organisation acceptability makes it easier to re use the grand father. The fact that various estimations were done using the same sheet, lesser questions will be asked by stakeholders/management on the sheet makes the case for the sheet to become more acceptable. 

Some of the other human biases that are commonly seen in software effort estimation situations are complexity bias, survivorship bias, wishful thinking & planning fallacy. Being aware about these biases helps us individuals not succumb to it blindly & hence improve decision making.