Avoiding authority bias in projects

Introduction

Article gives general advice as well as presents useful tools and methods for project managers to avoid authority bias is projects.

Authority bias

Authority bias is a well-known phenomenon and one of the social cognitive biases. The tendency to attribute greater accuracy to the opinion of an authority figure and be more influenced by that opinion leads to inefficient and unprofitable projects at best and to disasters at worst. In medicine non-experts could blindly follow expert's commands, which can result in the distribution of harmful drugs and inappropriate healthcare practices. In aviation the decisions of the pilot in command are not necessarily challenged by co-pilots or lower grade employees.

In business the authority bias is demonstrated by the HIPPO (highest-paid persons' opinion) impact. Brainstorming sessions are often inefficient because extroverts take over.

Law of triviality

"The time spent on any item of the agenda will be in inverse proportion to the sum [of money] involved." is known as the law of triviality. If project managers or other authorities fall into this trap, then people in their project team face a serious danger of project bullshit.

Useful tools and methods

As a general rule person acting as a project manager or having an authority position should withdraw him- or herself from giving estimates or opinions in face-to-face meetings or workshops, or at least express them cautiously, specially if project team members tend to follow manager’s opinions.

Instead manager could seek ways to engage team members through anonymous working methods. Following tools and methods can be useful for avoiding the authority bias.

• Delphi technique, where panel of experts answer questionnaires in two or more rounds. Facilitator provides an anonymised summary of the answers. Summary is distributed back and estimates are further refined in the following round(s). Process is stopped after a predefined stop criterion (e.g., number of rounds, achievement of consensus, stability of results). Anonymity prevents the authority, personality, or reputation of some participants from dominating others in the process.
• Nominal group technique, which is a guided brainstorming technique and where each participant writes down independently (no discussion) threats and opportunities related to the project. Duplicates are removed and impact and probability for each threat and opportunity are scored on a proper scale (e.g. 1...5), again without discussion. Finally total impact and probability scores for each threat and opportunity are counted. Threats and opportunities can then be placed e.g. on an impact/probability chart based on the total score. Technique encourages contributions from everyone and facilitates quick agreement on the relative importance of issues, problems, or solutions.

Other possible solutions would be to use e.g. web-based platforms where team members can give feedback and ideas anonymously. Manager can also encourage questioning by using it consistently him- or herself.

There is a debriefing mechanism known as STEALTH, where the letters come from the process steps in the following way:

1. Set time / location / preparation. Let everyone know what they need to bring to the debrief. Start and end on time.
2. Tone (nameless, rankless, open communication; lead by example). You criticize yourself first (inside) and then let your team do the outside criticism. Start by listing your lapses and mistakes. Keep the observed mistakes nameless by using third person and replacing names with roles or positions such as the wingman, the architect, the developer, etc.
3. Execution versus objectives. How well did you execute based on what you said you were going to do? Focus on results rather than objectives.
4. Analyze execution. Determine the underlying causes of problems or issues. Look for the root cause.
5. Lessons learned. Find the prominent or recurring root cause that bridges together several errors or successes.
6. Transfer lessons learned throughout your organization. Tell people what you’ve learned. The specific fix you recommend needs to be clearly written so that others within your organization can understand the issue and benefit from the solution even if they were not there.
7. High note – positive summation. End the debrief on a high note.

Step #2 (tone) is worth noting. Leader will establish a nameless and rankless procedure based on open communication. This way authority bias can be efficiently reduced.

Conclusion

Authority bias can lead into serious problems in project execution. Its effects can be reduced by using specific tools, such as Delphi and Nominal group techniques as well as STEALTH debriefing. Any mechanism, which encourages team members to express themselves openly without the fear of criticism, is useful.