Thinking Fast and Slow

Daniel Kahneman’s book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, summarizes the research that he has done over the past forty years; beginning with his work with Amos Tversky.

What Kahneman, through numerous experiments, comes to demonstrate, is that human beings are intuitive thinkers and that human intuition is imperfect. There’s a large part of the book dedicated to explain the many ways our thinking is biased and how humans make irrational choices.

I studied Economics in the early 80s. Although much of what I studied is buried is some rather inaccessible part of my brain, I still remember a couple of assumptions often at the core of much of what we were taught:  one was that “consumers are rational and make rational choices”, the other was the idea that ”consumers are risk averse”. I never felt quite comfortable with the first (this book proves that my intuition was at least correct that time)

Daniel Kahneman won a Nobel prize in Economics in 2002. Over the last recent decades his research has had a major influence in the area of Behavioral Economics. One key contribution is the demonstration that human beings do make choices that are not rational and this leads to real world results that significantly differ from theoretical predictions based on economics models.

Our “fast thinking” (system 1) is effortless, is an intuitive thinking and is actually the one that takes control most of the time. Our “slow thinking” (system 2) is the one we use to resolve complicated problems; it is effortful, requires attention and, interestingly,  happens to be slept most of the time and is “lazy”, often endorsing what comes from our intuitive selves (without realizing it). Our system 1 is, as Kahneman puts it “a machine for jumping to conclusions” even if there is very little evidence to sustain them and, consequently, our conclusions are sometimes wrong; especially when having to make choices in situations where there is a high degree of uncertainty.

Three interesting features of fast thinking are largely discussed in the book:

• People make decisions in a rather “narrow way”, focusing a lot on the immediate emotional reaction to an outcome rather than to long term consequences
• People are much more sensitive to potential losses than to potential gains, this tends to makes people unreasonably risk averse
• People tend to be optimistic and overconfident, and this leads people to take unreasonable risks

Thinking Fast and Slow is a long book, to read it takes time and patience. It is, I promise, a healthy exercise for our System 2. I found the time invested in it both enjoyable and instructive. 

If you’d rather read some serious review before trying the book itself there’s plenty available in the internet. Lastly, if you do not have much time but are ready to spend an hour having the author walking you through some of the main themes of the book here’s a video for you. Enjoy!

Volunteering will make you happier!

It's been a while since my last post. A new work assignment has been mostly responsible for my lack of  activity in this space.

Yet, despite the extra mental workload associated to changing roles and having tons of new things to learn, o maybe because of it,  I recently accepted an opportunity to do some volunteering job and it was great!

This week we are celebrating the International Women's day. Inevitably, comparisons between man and women are constant in speeches and working sessions. In the volunteering space some studies highlight that we women are ahead of man; I do not know how truthful this really is. One thing I know though: having a great time dedicating some time to help others has no sex.

I have the privilege of working for an organization that gives its employees plenty of opportunity to participate in volunteering activities. This year I decided to take one of these opportunities and collaborate with the Spanish branch of the Junior Achievement International Organization. Junior Achievement's purpose reads: "Junior Achievement inspires and prepares young people to succeed in a global economy".

To make this happen Junior Achievement looks for professionals in different industries and specialties that voluntarily conduct training sessions for young students, often in their schools.

So for a few weeks this year I went back to school. I put myself in front of a group of 17 year old and walked them through the materials of a program called "Skills to Succeed". Some themes resonated more than others and prompted more debate: for me those were the best moments. When you feel that the class is engaged in the discussion, there's participation, even disagreement. 

All my colleagues that have collaborated in this program could tell you great stories about it. If you have an opportunñity to participate I'd recommend you go for it! You'll be happy!

Celebrating Three Years as a Certified Project Manager

Almost three years now since I took the Project Management Professional (PMP) exam! And now here I am, happy to share that I have just renewed the certification for another three years!

Early in June 2011 I was encouraged by my employer to become a certified Project Manager. After many years leading different IT projects I was already possessing the necessary experience for the Project Management Institute (PMI) to accept my application. I then become an eager student of the PMBOK Guide and the even more famous Rita's book.

I have to admit that spending my personal time preparing for the exam was not exactly fun, and that at the beginning I was a bit sceptical that I should gain some valuable knowledge. However, as I became more familiar with the project management areas and how they are developed in the PMBOK, I certainly became aware that there was much to learn. I realized how many of the things I was doing in my day to day work were being done in the correct way, and I also understood how others could be improved.

A good thing about the PMP certification is that you have to work to keep it. The certification is only valid for three years, and if you want to renew it you have to keep on learning about this Profession - in addition to pay the fees to the PMI.

So now I've got my renewal for another three years. This means I have to start planning how to gain my next 60 PDUs so I can celebrate another renewal in due course!

Getting Agile with Scrum. Understanding Scrum

In traditional IT development projects it is typical to write a big spec up-front and then we resist changes and put people through a change control committee to keep them to the essential minimum. Change however is a certain thing in life. When software development projects have a significant amount of complexity, functional and technical, change is inevitable.  Agile development principles are particularly handy in these highly uncertain scenarios: project scope/functionality is not fixed; instead the timescale is. During that time requirements emerge and evolve as the product is developed. Of course for this to work, it’s imperative to have actively involved stakeholders who understand this concept and make the necessary trade-off decisions, trading existing scope for new scope.

There's a ton of materials out there about Agile development methodologies. One of the most utilized is Scrum.

If you are not yet familiar with the basic Scrum principles I highly recommend you check out Mike Cohn's  video channel in Youtube. Mike's communication style is very direct and easy to follow.

Here's one of his videos: Agile and the Seven Deadly Sins of Project Management, enjoy!