Planning Fallacy is the tendency to be too optimistic about one's estimates. As a result, the time needed to get something done is underestimated.

Primal Skill

George

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The planning fallacy is a cognitive bias where individuals underestimate the time, costs, and risks involved in a task despite past evidence to the contrary. This bias stems from our inherent optimism, preference for positive information, and tendency to ignore outside data. It affects individuals and organizations alike, leading to poor planning and unforeseen obstacles. Strategies to mitigate this bias include considering external data, setting specific implementation intentions, and breaking projects into smaller tasks. Notable examples include the Sydney Opera House and the Canadian Pacific Railway, both of which faced considerable delays and cost overruns.

Planning fallacy

That’s why I prefer simple, agile methods. And with that I mean real agile, and not the Scrum or SAFe crap. Ideally without any estimations.
Just have the stories always ordered by priority and pick them top to bottom. When you finished a story, take the next important one.
If a story is too large, try to cut it into smaller technical tasks.
Of course that is only the general idea and the procedures should be adapted over time if that improves the process for the current project.
Planning (and especially estimations) are bs in software development anyway. It is creative work, also often influenced by outside factors.
The best advice I’ve heard so far:
&quot;For time estimates, always increase the unit by one.
So if you would estimate one hour, answer ‘one day’. If you would estimate one day, say ‘one week’.
If your own estimate was correct, everyone is happy that it was finished earlier. If you were too optimistic, you should still have enough time to complete it within the specified time frame. &quot;
I should really follow that advice more often.
Right now, I am currently finalizing a task that I estimated to do within two weeksand I am close to being two month working on it.
I am working on that project for more than six years, and I still can’t estimate anything correctly there, because it still surprises me all the time.

it happens when you do not know what are the resources required for a task at hand and the time taken to procure it.

Really well written! This reminds me of the 90% rule: if you think you’re 90% of the way done, you’re probably only actually 10% of the way there.