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IJMPB
10,2
370
Received 18 July 2016
Revised 11 October 2016
Accepted 3 November 2016
International Journal of Managing
Projects in Business
Vol. 10 No. 2, 2017
pp. 370-385
© Emerald Publishing Limited
1753-8378
DOI 10.1108/IJMPB-07-2016-0063
Optimism bias within the project
management context
A systematic quantitative literature review
James Prater, Konstantinos Kirytopoulos and Tony Ma
School of Natural and Built Environments,
University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia
Abstract
Purpose – One of the major challenges for any project is to prepare and develop an achievable baseline
schedule and thus set the project up for success, rather than failure. The purpose of this paper is to explore
and investigate research outputs in one of the major causes, optimism bias, to identify problems with
developing baseline schedules and analyse mitigation techniques and their effectiveness recommended by
research to minimise the impact of this bias.
Design/methodology/approach – A systematic quantitative literature review was followed, examining
Project Management Journals, documenting the mitigation approaches recommended and then reviewing
whether these approaches were validated by research.
Findings – Optimism bias proved to be widely accepted as a major cause of unrealistic scheduling for
projects, and there is a common understanding as to what it is and the effects that it has on original baseline
schedules. Based upon this review, the most recommended mitigation method is Flyvbjerg’s “Reference
class,” which has been developed based upon Kahneman’s “Outside View”. Both of these mitigation
techniques are based upon using an independent third party to review the estimate. However, within the
papers reviewed, apart from the engineering projects, there has been no experimental and statistically
validated research into the effectiveness of this method. The majority of authors who have published on this
topic are based in Europe.
Research limitations/implications – The short-listed papers for this review referred mainly to
non-engineering projects which included information technology focussed ones. Thus, on one hand, empirical
research is needed for engineering projects, while on the other hand, the lack of tangible evidence for the
effectiveness of methods related to the alleviation of optimism bias issues calls for greater research into
the effectiveness of mitigation techniques for not only engineering projects, but for all projects.
Originality/value – This paper documents the growth within the project management research literature
over time on the topic of optimism bias. Specifically, it documents the various methods recommended to
mitigate the phenomenon and highlights quantitatively the research undertaken on the subject. Moreover, it
introduces paths for further research.
Keywords Scheduling, Optimism bias, Baseline, Outside view, Reference class forecasting,
Reference class
Paper type Literature review
1. Introduction
There are a considerable number of projects where time is a great concern, even more
important than other project management subject groups, provided that cost, scope and
quality are not extensively compromised. Furthermore, even if a project is not mainly
time-constrained, completing projects on time is generally an indicator of an efficient
industry (Chan and Kumaraswamy, 1997). Flyvbjerg (2008, p. 5) reports that 20-45 per cent
of projects do not meet their original time and cost baseline, and that this has not changed
for the last 70 years (Flyvbjerg, 2006, p. 7). During this time extensive “improvements” have
been made to project controls and methods, including critical path method, program
evaluation and review technique (PERT) and work breakdown structure, yet project
performance has improved little from both a schedule and cost perspective.
The authors wish to thank the editor and the anonymous reviewers for their constructive remarks that
helped significantly the improvement of this paper.
 Numerous papers (Flyvbjerg, 2006; MacDonald, 2002; Morris and Hough, 1987) have also Optimism bias
shown that the original baseline was not a good predictor of how long the project would
take, and that the basis of poor project performance was often not project execution
but under-estimation of baselines (Eizakshiri et al., 2015). One significant cause of this
under-estimation has been shown by research to be optimism bias, a human behavioural
characteristic first identified by Kahneman and Tversky in 1977. Flyvbjerg (2006, p. 6)
defined it as “a cognitive predisposition found with most people to judge future events in a 371
more positive light than is warranted by actual experience”. Broadly, it means that people,
when asked to forecast the future, do not consider history or unforeseen events. Thus, the
relatively new technique of capturing and reviewing lessons learnt to learn from previous
projects may be biased as well.
Optimism bias is a process of our brain that guides judgement (Shepperd et al., 2002, p. 65)
and can be described as the way we actually think, not the way we think we think.
The perception is that the way we think is logical and rational where in fact it is quite contrary
to that. Shepperd et al. (2002, p. 77) summarise this very well, commenting that “our review
reveals that there are a multiple motivational, cognitive and affective accounts for why people
overwhelming prophesize that their future will be better than the future of others”.
Researchers have found that optimism is embedded in human nature for reasons. Varki
(2009) has put forward the proposal that as humans, we are one of only a few species on the
planet that can do mental time travel (Suddendorf and Corballis, 2007). Therefore, we can
remember what we did yesterday and can plan for what we will do tomorrow or the next week.
Knowing that we have a finite life, optimism bias prevents us from becoming depressed and
potentially prematurely ending our life. Another theory (Scheier and Carver, 1987) goes even
further to suggest that optimistic people have been shown to a greater probability of surviving
life-threatening illness. Over time, this characteristic has become more dominant in the
population. Although one could say that these theories may have gone too far, they provide
evidence that the level of optimism is an interesting subject for investigation.
Taking the existence of optimism bias as a fact, there has been significant research on
methods and approaches to mitigate the phenomenon. Petticrew (2001) attempted an
assessment of the depth and breadth of academic literature on optimism bias and specifically
methods to reduce its impacts. Results are variant. Some research has shown that the impacts
of optimism bias cannot be fully mitigated (Buehler et al., 1994). Other approaches have shown
that unpacking the task to be estimated tends to improve estimating (Kruger and Evans, 2004).
Unpacking is where the task is broken down into smaller tasks. Forcing the estimator to adopt
an outside view (Flyvbjerg, 2008) based on historical performance has also been shown to
improve estimation. Interestingly, the use of a lessons learnt approach, a traditional project
management approach, has not been shown to be able to mitigate the impacts of optimism bias
( Jorgensen and Gruschke, 2009). Research also strongly supports that there is no one solution
to reducing optimism bias, and similar to schedule estimations, a combination seems to deliver
the best results (Boehm et al., 2000).
This analysis of the academic literature was undertaken in order to answer the following
research questions:
RQ1. Does the project management community have a common understanding and
definition of the term “optimism bias”?
RQ2. Does the project management academic literature have a common understanding
of its impacts? Moreover, what, if any, quantitative experiments have been
undertaken into understanding its effects for projects?
RQ3. What, if any, tools and approaches have been used successfully to mitigate its impacts?
RQ4. Have these tools or approaches been empirically validated?
IJMPB The main contribution of this paper is that it maps the current status of literature on
10,2 optimism bias and identifies gaps in research that can foster the future research agenda
on the subject.

2. Research method
The research method chosen was a systematic quantitative literature review (Petticrew, 2001)
372 which uses keyword and phrase searching to highlight literature pertinent to the research
area, in this case project management, that contains the search criteria.
This approach is by its nature, iterative, as whilst reviewing the literature returned by
the search criteria would highlight other keywords that should be searched upon.
When used in combination with a variety of scientific databases this will ensure a thorough
investigation into the applicable research papers. The resultant papers are then used as a
base to undertake further analysis, such as what type of paper, whether it was a literature
review, results of experiment, validation of a theory, etc.
By applying this method, the approach to discover is reproducible, clearly articulated
and designed to minimise potential bias that occurs in a narrative style of review
(Collins and Fauser, 2005). In researching for this paper, the authors became aware of a
relatively recent qualitative-narrative literature review of optimism bias on projects by
Weyer (2011), and rather than duplicating this approach, which could potentially produce
similar results, a quantitative approach was adopted.
Journals to search were identified by using the Australian Business Deans Council
(ABDC) Journal Quality List. We looked for journals using the word “project” in their titles.
This identified six potential journals, which included the International Journal of Project
Management (IJPM ), the Project Management Journal (PMJ ), the International Journal of
Managing Projects in Business (IJMPB) and the International Journal of Project Organisation
and Management (IJPOM ). Two other journals, namely, the Impact Assessment and Project
Appraisal and the Built Environment Project and Asset Management were found using this
search criterion, but after reviewing the editorial objectives of each, both were judged as out
of scope of this research.
Thus, four journals were searched with the underlying assumption being that these journals
would provide insights into the current project management context on optimism bias.

2.1 Search process

Initially, the search focussed on keywords and abstracts as previous research has shown
(Guitart et al., 2012) that using these papers’ attributes should ensure that the papers are
relevant. Key phrases used for the search were “Optimism Bias” and “Planning Fallacy”.
Key databases searched included Scopus, Google Scholar and Emerald Insight. Based upon
a review of papers found during the initial search, additional phrases were then used to
search like “delusional optimism” and both “over-optimism” and “over optimism”. This was
then further broadened and searching was undertaken using the term “optimi” of not only
the keywords and abstracts but the full text of the papers as well (Figure 1).
This search resulted in 312 papers, 52 of which were either review papers, editorials or
conference proceedings and were not included in the analysis. A further 227 papers were
deemed not to be relevant as the keywords were used as a descriptor (i.e. the staff were
optimistic); part of a PERT calculation; part of a calculation (i.e. the optimistic case is 3,
pessimistic is 1); referenced a paper that had the term “optimism” within the paper’s title; a
project management leadership characteristic.
Of note was that a number of these papers were not relevant to this quantitative review that
viewed optimism in a very positive light, specifically as a key characteristic of either a high
performing project manager or project team. One paper (Smith et al., 2011) had specifically
researched the improvement in performance from highly optimistic project managers.
 Step 1
Optimism bias
Define Topc
Step 2
Formulate research
questions
Step 3
Identify Keywords
Step 4
Identify and Search
Step 5 Databases
Read and Assess 373
publications

Step 12
Step 6 Step 8 Step 11
Evaluate key results and
Structure Database Test and Revise themes Analyse Papers
conclusions

Step 13 Step 14 Step 15

Draft results and Draft introduction,
abstract and
Revise paper till ready Figure 1.
dicussions
references
For submission Quantitative review
process
Source: Adapted from Pickering and Byrne (2014, p.10)

This was also one of the main findings from the previous literature undertaken by
Weyer (2011), who in conclusion stated, “Seen through the lens of the dominant project
management metaphor of project as a tool, optimism should be tempered with or eliminated.
Viewed through the lens of an alternative project metaphor of project as a temporary
organisation, optimism is an individual disposition, which holds important advantages”.
Weyer then goes on to recommend further research into this area.

2.2 Review criteria

The criterion that was used to decide whether the papers were relevant was whether
the paper included one or more key points that were directly related to the research topic
(i.e. a discussion about the front end of projects; optimism as a characteristic; research
into optimism).
These criteria resulted in 33 papers that were then analysed, using a metadata and
categorisation approach, in order to answer the research questions.
For each of the papers examined, the following information was captured: year; title;
author location; keywords; abstract; number of authors per paper; project type reviewed;
whether it was related to megaprojects; qualitative or quantitative research undertaken;
type of research approach used; whether it was related to early warning; what, if any,
mitigation approaches were recommended.
As all papers had been published in well-esteemed peer-reviewed academic journals, the
methods and conclusions of each paper had already been de facto examined and assessed to
be of a standard suitable for publishing in the academic literature. Thus, no comment or
assessment of the paper’s methodology was undertaken, as this would raise epistemological
concerns about the appropriateness of this research method.

3. Results overview
The metadata of the papers examined were analysed using a number of approaches.
Specifically the following variables were analysed: date and journals that the papers
examined were published in; percentage of papers categorised as relevant compared to the
number of papers published within the journal; author and location of papers examined;
IJMPB theming of keywords used within the papers examined; summarising and grouping by
10,2 author reference papers that the papers examined referenced; categorising the type of
project that the relevant paper was applicable to; analysing which of the papers examined
were “Literature Reviews”; categorising the underlying research design approach for the
relevant paper into either an experimental approach, case study or other type; reviewing
whether the relevant paper used questionnaires, interview’s and whether these were then
374 statistically analysed; categorising the relevant paper as discussing specific issues with
early warning signs and finally grouping mitigation approaches used and whether these
have been validated.

3.1 Origins, authorship and evolution of optimism bias

In order to understand when the term “optimism bias” became used commonly within the
project management academic literature, the date and the journal published in for the papers
examined was analysed. The IJPM had the vast majority of papers on the subject within the
papers examined, with 22 papers or 67 per cent of the total. The PMJ had six papers or
18 per cent and the IJMPB had five papers or 15 per cent published, whilst no papers were
published in the IJPOM.
Simply, reviewing the number of papers published can be misleading, as it does not take
into account the significant increase in the number of papers published by the IJPM. In the
first year (2004) that optimism bias is mentioned, there were 66 papers published, whilst in
2015, 175 papers (a nearly threefold increase) were published in this journal. The number of
papers published by the other journal reviewed did not have any growth, with the IJPOM
averaging 22 papers published per year, the IJMPB 37 papers per year and the PMJ 36 papers.
The first occurrence of the search terms in the papers examined was in 2004. There were
few occurrences of the search terms up to 2008, but since then there has been a steady growth
in the number of papers published that use this term. However, the percentage of papers
mentioning the optimism bias has been consistent at just over 2 per cent for all journals.
One of the key points to understand was whether the research community has a
commonly agreed definition of the term “optimism bias” and what, if any, characteristics
were common with the papers examined. To address this point analysis was undertaken as
to what references were used within the papers to define the term.
In total, 22 out of 33 papers examined defined optimism bias; nine of these papers used a
paper with Flyvbjerg as an author to define the term, and six used a paper with Kahneman,
five with Lovallo and three with Buehler. In total, these authors defined optimism bias in 17
of the 22 papers examined. The most common paper, with four uses, to define optimism bias
was “Delusions of Success” by Lovallo and Kahneman (2003) which discussed and defined
delusional optimism as where “We overemphasize projects’ potential benefits and
underestimate likely costs, spinning success scenarios while ignoring the possibility of
mistakes”. Based upon this analysis, it is clear that within the papers examined there was a
commonly agreed understanding of optimism bias and its impacts on project schedules.
In order to understand which countries and authors are publishing papers using the term
“optimism bias”, both the author and country were analysed. The results of this analysis are that
27 (44 per cent) of the relevant authors were located in the UK, Norway was the next most
popular location with 17 (27 per cent) authors, followed by the USA with eight (13 per cent).
The remaining ten (18 per cent) authors were located in South Africa, Australia, the Netherlands,
Germany, France, Finland and Canada. Figure 2 illustrates the location of the authors.
Based on this analysis, over 75 per cent of the papers have their authors based in
Europe. This is also reflected in the authors who published multiple papers. Out of the
62 authors for the 33 papers audited, eight authors published multiple papers examined and
all but one author was based in Europe. There were four authors who had published three
papers: M. Jørgensen (Norway); B. Flyvbjerg (UK); O.J. Klakegg (Norway) and T. Williams (UK).
 Optimism bias

375

Figure 2.
Author location

On the other hand, four authors had published two papers: B. Andersen (Norway);
C. Chapman (UK); J.K. Pinto (USA) and S. Ward (UK). Analysis of whether any of the papers had
authors who had clustered together (where two or more authors had published multiple papers)
was also undertaken on the relevant papers, but there was no evidence of any clustering.

3.2 High impact contributions

Understanding what the papers examined used as reference papers, and specifically
whether the same reference paper was used a number of times by the examined papers
helps to answer the question: Does the project management research community have a
common understanding and definition of the term “optimism bias”? As if it does so, there
should be commonality in referencing to not only optimism bias, but also mitigation tools/
techniques reported in the literature.
Thus, the analysis of the reference papers used by the papers examined was undertaken.
The 33 papers examined had a total of 1,948 reference papers. The least number
of references used by one of the papers examined was six, while the highest number of
references in a paper was 147 and the average number of references in the papers examined
was 59. Further analysis showed that there are specific papers that kept appearing in
reference lists of the examined papers more frequently than others. To explain this further,
the paper by Flyvbjerg et al. (2003) was referenced by 12 of the papers examined. This paper
describes “[…] how the promoters of multibillion-dollar megaprojects systematically and
self-servingly misinform parliaments, the public and the media in order to get projects
approved and built” Flyvbjerg et al. (2003, p. 1). Two other research papers were also high in
the number of times they were referenced (ten and eight) within the papers examined.
These were the papers by Flyvbjerg et al. (2009) which “explores the underlying
psychological and governance reasons for mis-estimation rather than proximate
engineering causes”. Finally, Kahneman and Tversky (1979) provide an alternative model
to how people make decisions under risk.
IJMPB Out of the total 1,916 references, 1,500 were referenced only once by the papers
10,2 examined, 112 were referenced in two of the papers examined, 26 were referenced in three of
the papers examined, 12 were referenced in four of the papers examined, nine were
referenced by five of the papers examined, two were referenced by six and one was by seven
of the papers examined.
Author names that appear in the references of ten or more papers were then analysed in
376 order to understand whether these authors were widely referenced.
The results are detailed in Table I. The first two columns document the author’s name
and country. The next column documents the total mentions of the particular author that
were referenced by one or more of the papers examined and the last column documents
the number of papers that were referenced. To explain this further, in total the top
author Flyvbjerg was referenced 99 times by the papers examined, with 24 individual
papers referenced.
In analysing this information in Table I, we find that the impact that Flyvbjerg has within
this research field is very clear. With just under one in 20 papers (94 of the 1,916 references),
mentioning his work, the next closest author, Williams, has 50 less paper mentions than
Flyvbjerg’s total. In addition, within the papers assessed as relevant by this research, both of
the authors Flyvbjerg and Williams had papers included. Also of note is the level of clustering
from authors, with a number of high impact authors co-authoring numerous papers as
provided in Table I.

3.3 Keywords, type of project

Reviewing authors and their location provide insights into who and where research into
optimism bias is being undertaken. Reviewing the keywords applied to the papers examined
looking for consistent themes provides another insight into how optimism bias is viewed.
Information technology, project success and optimism were found as keywords in two
papers; in further reviewing the keywords there are two clear themes emerging, which are risk
and management. The keywords under the theme of risk included Uncertainty (4), Project risk
management (3), Complexity (2), Risk (2), Forecasting and Uncertainty management (2).
Whilst under the theme of Management there was Decision making (2), Escalation of
commitment (2), Governance (3), Portfolio management (2), Project management (2), and
Early Warning Signs (2).
Previous research (Flyvbjerg, 2006) has shown that optimism bias is a significant risk for all
projects and thus the risk theme of keywords within the papers examined further supports that
their respective authors were discussing and focussing on the impacts and potential mitigation

Author Country Paper mentions No. of papers

Flyvbjerg, B. UK 94 35
Williams, T.M. UK 40 16
Morris, P.W.G. UK 29 19
Kahneman, D. USA 36 12
Samset, K. Norway 18 11
Tversky, A. (all co-authored with Kahneman) USA 19 8
Lovallo, D. (all co-authored with either Flyvbjerg or Kahneman) Australia 19 4
Clegg, S. Australia 17 6
Miller, R. USA 16 8
Bruzelius, N. (all co-authored with Flyvbjerg and Rothengatter) UK 16 2
Table I. Rothengatter, W. (all co-authored with Flyvbjerg and Bruzelius) UK 16 2
Reference paper Pitsis, T. (all co-authored with Clegg) Australia 15 4
set authors Garbuio, M. (co-authored with Flyvbjerg, Lovallo) Australia 10 1
methods of optimism bias. This is also reflected in the management theme, with keywords Optimism bias
clustering around various control methods to improve management and governance.
Post the analysis of key words, each of the papers examined was assessed as to what type of
project that it applied to and whether it was an information technology, engineering, and
megaproject or applied to all project types. There was one paper that did not fit into any of these
categories as it was related to research and development of new drugs. Based upon this analysis
there were only a relatively small number of papers (four) with an information technology focus 377
within the papers examined. The results of this analysis are tabulated in Table II.

Early Mitigation
Journal Authors Country Project type warning factors

IJPM Jørgensen and Sjøberg (2004) Norway; Norway IT

PMJ Flyvbjerg (2006) Denmark All | |
IJPM Chapman (2006) UK All
IJPM Chapman et al. (2006) UK; UK; UK All | |
IJPM Jørgensen (2006) Norway IT
IJPM Atkinson et al. (2006) UK; Australia; UK All
IJPM Dolfi and Andrews (2007) USA; USA All
IJMPB Klakegg (2009) Norway All
PMJ Williams and Samset (2010) UK; Norway All
IJMPB Smith et al. (2011) South Africa; South IT
Africa; South Africa
IJPM Kutsch et al. (2011) UK; UK; Germany; UK All | |
IJPM Trietsch and Baker (2012) USA; USA All |
IJPM Sanderson (2012) UK Engineering,
megaproject
IJPM Giezen (2012) The Netherlands Engineering,
megaproject
IJPM Jørgensen et al. (2012) Norway; Norway; UK IT
IJPM Breese (2012) UK All
PMJ Williams et al. (2012) UK; Norway; Australia; All |
Norway; Norway
IJPM Flyvbjerg (2013) UK Engineering
IJMPB Lefley (2013) UK All
IJPM Winch (2013) UK Engineering, |
megaproject
PMJ Flyvbjerg (2014) UK Engineering,
megaproject
IJPM Pinto (2014) USA All |
IJPM Lehtiranta (2014) Finland All
IJMPB Berg and Karlsen (2014) Norway; Norway All
PMJ Wearne (2014) UK Engineering |
PMJ Meyer (2014) France All |
IJPM Saunders et al. (2015) UK; UK; UK Engineering
IJMPB Eizakshiri et al. (2015) UK; UK; UK All
IJPM Pinto and Patanakul (2015) USA; USA All
IJPM Klakegg et al. (2015) Norway; UK; Norway Engineering,
megaproject
IJPM Haji-Kazemi et al. (2015) Norway; Norway; Norway All | |
IJPM Lechler and Thomas (2015) USA; Canada R&D
IJPM Olawale and Sun (2015) UK; UK Engineering Table II.
Y. Olawale and M. Sun Authors, project type,
Notes: PMJ, Project Management Journal; IJPM, International Journal of Project Management; early warning and
IJMPB, International Journal of Managing Projects in Business mitigation factors
IJMPB 3.4 Retrospective consideration of relevant research
10,2 Relevant papers were categorised as to what type of research method was used, the results
of which are detailed in Table III.
Only four papers found in the relevant papers examined applied a methodology based
upon an experiment undertaken and then the experiment was statistically analysed.
Only one of these papers (Meyer, 2014) had used a scientific approach, analysed the results
378 and mentioned the use of the reference class approach. However, the purpose of this
research by Meyer (2014) was not to validate the use of the reference class project but to
investigate the impacts of optimism bias on the decisions to terminate a project. The use of
the dual research methods of questionnaire and interviews concurrently was quite wide
with seven papers adopting this approach, but results were statistically analysed only in
two papers, these being the ones of Olawale and Sun (2015) and Kutsch et al. (2011).
Papers were then reviewed to see whether they were primarily a literature review of
existing research and not the reporting of new research results. In total, 12 of the papers
were categorised as a literature review. In reviewing these papers, specifically around the
way that each discussed optimism bias, three clear themes emerged; these were risk,
environmental/cognitive and the outside view.
Three papers examined the issue of risk with optimism bias, with Chapman (2006)
discussing the use of Treasury’s (2003) “Green Book” adjustment factor as an optimistic bias
factor to address risk. Whilst Lehtiranta (2014) found that previous research had
highlighted that unrealistic optimistic assumptions in the early phase of projects are not
classified as risks, yet these risks were the main cause of cost overruns. Sanderson (2012)
argues that there are three different explanation types for the poor performance:
explanation type A – strategic rent-seeking behaviour, explanation type B – misaligned and
underdeveloped governance and explanation type C – diverse project cultures and
rationalities (Sanderson, 2012, p. 437). Over-optimism was included in explanation type A
and the recommended mitigation approach was to undertake a full risk analysis as part of
the project commencement. This approach is similar to undertaking a review of the project
using the “Outside view” of which another three of the papers examined had undertaken a
literary review of this approach to mitigate optimism bias. Two of these papers were
authored by Flyvbjerg (2013); the first paper describes the basis for the use of reference
class forecast, which is explained within the paper as “Specifically, the paper brings Nobel
prize-winning economic theory about the planning fallacy and the outside view, developed
by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, to bear upon quality control and due diligence in
the management of projects” (p. 3). Within the third section of this paper, a case study is
discussed and then the approach is applied to demonstrate the value of it. The second paper
published by Flyvbjerg (2014) provides a critical review of the management of megaprojects
and argues that one of the characteristics for their poor performance is optimism bias and that
optimism not only applies to costs, but benefits as well. It then goes on to recommend the use of
the previously mentioned HM Treasury “Green Book” as an appropriate outside view

Research methoda

Experiment 4
Case study 7
Questionnaire 13
Interviews 8
Statistical analysis (data) 15
Table III. Literature review 12
Research methods Note: aA number of papers used two or more research methods
mitigation factor. The final paper in the outside view theme was by Klakegg et al. (2015) and Optimism bias
reviewed whether major public project costs overrun in three countries have improved by
applying a number of different approaches. One of these counties was the UK, which had
mandated the use of the HM Treasury “Green Book” as part of the outside view approach to
mitigate optimism bias. The other major conclusion that this paper made was that “There are
fundamental limitations in the use of the formal systems as they cannot detect all problems and
there are limitations to human’s ability in terms of optimism bias that cannot be eliminated” 379
(Klakegg et al., 2015, p. 1).
The remaining six literature review papers were classified as either environmental or
cognitive. The oldest paper (Atkinson et al., 2006) discusses issues with the level of
uncertainty, one of the causes of which is optimism bias, and then goes on to discuss the
need to develop different approaches to manage this uncertainty. Taking a more detailed
review into the issues within the initiation phase of projects, Williams and Samset (2010)
examine the impact of optimism bias on this phase of the project and reinforce the point
made previously by Flyvbjerg that optimism bias applies to both costs and benefits.
They then go on to suggest the use of reference class forecasting and parametric forecasting
as mitigation approaches to use.
In parallel, Breese (2012) reviews the impacts of optimism bias on the practise of benefit
realisation management and discusses the concept of “benefit fraud”, a concept introduced
by Jenner (2009), who recommended a more detailed review of the associated managerial
process to realise benefits.
Focussing on a different aspect, Saunders et al. (2015) discussed that optimism bias is a
useful attitude when dealing with a large degree of project uncertainty within safety critical
projects. However, their findings are very much at odds with Pinto and Patanakul’s (2015)
paper where it is argued that optimism bias may be related to narcissistic tendencies, and
thus project managers with these tendencies routinely accept riskier projects due to their
strong belief that positive events would happen.
Finally, Eizakshiri et al. (2015) proposed that the cause of poor project performance was
not flawed execution, but flawed plans. They then go on to discuss that estimation is
fundamentally biased due to the methods applied when developing a plan and the
imagination of a perfect future. One recommendation is that planners develop multiple
models of the future, using different scenarios.

3.5 Early warning signs and mitigation techniques

One of the key issues for the researchers is to understand what academic literature research
had been undertaken into the tools/techniques developed and categorised as “Early Warning
Signs”. Early warning signs according to Nikander and Eloranta (2001, p. 1) “enable project
managers to better anticipate and manage otherwise unforeseeable project problems”;
arguably the impacts of optimism bias should also be considered as part of the early warning
signs for a project. Based upon this concept, the review included analysis of the selected
relevant papers to assess whether the papers had also researched early warning signs and
whether this research shed new light on the connection of optimism bias to early warning
signs. Each paper was then analysed as to whether it was directly related to this topic. Of the
33 papers analysed, nine were directly related to discussing issues with the early warning
signs. Of these nine papers, none of which had been previously categorised as directly related
to information technology projects.
The papers examined were analysed as to whether specific optimism bias mitigation
methods were mentioned within them; 14 of the papers did discuss, at varying levels,
mitigation techniques. In total, there were 25 mitigation approaches referenced by the
papers examined; these mitigation approaches were then categorised by the type of
mitigation approach and six approaches were identified. These were reference class (11);
IJMPB outside view (6); combination of reference class and outside view (3); statistical (4); agile (1)
10,2 and governance (1).
Based upon the analysis the reference class technique was the most recommended within
the relevant papers and suggested as a mitigation approach 14 times. This method has been
developed in order to quantify the impacts of optimism bias (Flyvbjerg, 2008) and is used by
large construction projects using previous project data to develop a multiplier.
380 This multiplier is then applied to the initial project estimate to counter for the impacts of
optimism bias.
The next most popular mitigation approach was the outside view which was mentioned
by nine papers; this method forces the estimator to adopt an outside view (Flyvbjerg, 2008)
based on historical performance. Unlike reference class forecasting, the outside view does
not apply a standard multiplier depending upon the type of project, but recommends that
the project team review similar classes of project to use as the basis to commence their
estimation upon. Statistical methods were mentioned twice, whilst agile and governance
was mentioned once.
Thus, the predominant method to mitigate optimism bias referred to within research
paper set was reference class, followed by the outside view. As reference class is a technique
developed based upon the outside view, and thus 18 of the 24 (75 per cent) methods analysed
within the research paper set, referred to the same mitigation approach. Based upon this
result, it is unsurprising that a large number of the papers examined defined both the
outside view and reference class approach for mitigation by referencing one of Flyvbjerg’s
papers. It should be noted here that although the concept of the aforementioned mitigation
techniques is almost well established in the literature, there seems to be a gap within the
research into their use and effectiveness in practice.

4. Research findings
Utilising the approach of a quantitative review ensures the documentation of where and by
whom the research has been undertaken, what methods have been used and most
importantly what were the key outcomes from the research reviewed. This approach helps
to clearly identify what has been found and which are the gaps within the literature that
require further investigation. In particular, summary conclusions can be made about where
specific combinations have yet to be researched. Based upon this quantitative review of
project management literature into optimism bias, it is clear that the phenomenon is widely
accepted by the community. Also, there are a number of key authors, mainly based in
Europe, who have undertaken significant research into the area. However, there seems to be
a gap when it comes to experimental and statistically validated research into the mitigation
techniques, the mostly preferred method that is reference class included. Specifically, the
application of the reference class approach to information technology projects does not seem
to have been either validated by experiment or by interviews of project management
practitioners applying this technique.
One of the major challenges for a project manager is to develop a realistic baseline
schedule; this paper has reviewed and summarised the current understanding of researchers
on one of the major influences, optimism bias, into its development. This review gave the
required data to answer the main research questions raised.
The first research question raised in this paper was whether “the project management
community has a common understanding and definition of the term optimism bias”. The
findings indicate that project management community has indeed a common understanding on
the term, and work of either Flyvbjerg, Kahneman, Lovallo or Buehler is used to define it.
The most widely used definition had become even more emotive and had changed from simply
optimism bias to become “delusional optimism” which stressed that the impacts of
optimism bias can be extreme, with estimates impacted by it, defying logical reasoning.
It is clear from this review that the research community recognises optimism bias and there are Optimism bias
a steady number of papers published on the topic. A large majority of publishing authors are
based in Europe and a number have published multiple papers. One author, Flyvbjerg,
publishes a significant amount of papers, and is widely referenced on the subject.
The answer to the second question which consists of two distinct parts, the first part
being “Does the project management academic literature have a common understanding of
the impacts of optimism bias?” is “yes the research community has an understanding of the 381
impact of optimism bias”. On the other hand, the answer to the second part of the question
which is “What, if any, quantitative experiments have been undertaken into understanding
its effects for projects?” is “no, based upon the literature there has been no quantitative
experiment undertaken to attempt to quantify its impact”. One could then argue that within
the literature review there is strong support that optimism bias does affect original
schedules, but as there has been minimal scientific research into.
The third question relating to tools was “What, if any, tools and approaches have been
used successfully to mitigate its impact?” which was clearly answered with the reference
class technique based upon the outside view the dominant tool.
The answer to the fourth and final question which was “Have these tools or approaches
been empirically validated?” was that the reference class approach has been validated for
large engineering projects (Flyvbjerg, 2008) but within papers examined, not for a number
of other types of projects such as information technology-based ones. The predominant
method to mitigate optimism bias is the use of the reference class approach, a technique
based upon the outside view. From the papers reviewed, it seems that the use of reference
class approach and early warning signs on other than big engineering projects had not been
reported upon, nor had there been any quantifiable experiment-based research that had
been analysed statistically. The lack of research into the application of this mitigation
technique to areas such as information technology and other types of projects is another gap
that requires further research.
Thus, the dilemma is that on one hand the project needs to set an aggressive-optimistic
schedule that will motivate the team, staffed by optimistic high achieving team members.
However, on the other hand, the project decision makers need a conservative worst-case
estimate in order to ensure that the project is viable, if it does not meet its optimistic target.
Therefore, the use of Flyvbjerg’s reference class forecasting providing the mechanism to
develop this conservative estimate would seem to address the issue. One could argue that
having both forecasts available to decision makers (optimistic and conservative) would
improve decision making, allowing the optimistic act as the “stretch target” but also provide
via the reference class approach a reality check.
All these bring an interesting research agenda ahead. One of the questions arising is
that if the use of a reference class forecast is the recommended mitigation approach to
reduce the impacts of optimism bias within the front end of projects, research should be
undertaken to confirm that the suggested reference class range for information technology
projects (and other projects) based upon the HM Government “Green Book” is valid in
practice most of the times. Another research path would include to develop experiments to
obtain quantifiable evidence to support that applying reference class forecasting to the
front end of IT projects improves the baseline forecast. Other important areas are
also to be exploited. One of those would be to investigate the effect of optimism bias
across different industries, education levels, cultural and social background of the
estimators as well as the environment in which they operate. The latter would include
the investigation of “coercive” optimism bias put on the project manager by unrealistic
expectations of the sponsor, project team and other stakeholders. Another area would be
to investigate early warning signs that emerge due to the impact of optimism bias in
schedule development.
IJMPB On a different line of thought, it would be interesting to explore whether the use of
10,2 the lessons learnt approach, reference database or the skills, expertise and experience of the
project manager would change estimates significantly. Furthermore, it is recommended that
research be undertaken to assess whether this approach could also be used to communicate
a level of uncertainty (or range) to the key stakeholders.
Last but not least, the findings of this research reveal that the interest on the topic is
382 significantly higher in Europe. The phenomenon is interesting and can call for explanatory
research that will explain whether there is a reason behind that or not.

5. Conclusions
One of the major challenges for any project is to prepare and develop an achievable baseline
schedule and thus set the project up for success, rather than failure. This paper explores
project management research journals as to the mitigation techniques to reduce one of the
major causes, optimism bias, that inhibit the ability to develop a realistic baseline.
The approach undertaken was a systematic quantitative literature review, which
documented the mitigation approaches recommended by the academic community and
then further reviewed whether these approaches were supported by research.
The key finding of this research is that optimism bias is widely accepted to be one of the
major causes for unrealistic scheduling for projects. The most recommended mitigation
method is Flyvbjerg’s “Reference class” which has been developed based upon Kahneman’s
“Outside View”. However, within the papers reviewed, and specifically for non-engineering
projects, there has been no experimental and statistically validated academic research into
the effectiveness of this method. This then leads to a recommendation for greater
quantitative research into the application of the reference class mitigation approach to other
non-engineering projects such as information technology projects.
This paper documents the growth within the project management research literature
over time on the topic of optimism bias. After applying the quantitative literature review
approach, out of the 312 papers identified by the search, 33 papers were finally analysed in
detail as each of these papers was deemed to have one or more key points directly related to
the research. Analysing the papers from the authorship perspective highlighted the
importance of the topic for the European community. Οver 75 per cent of the papers’ authors
were found to be based in Europe. Moreover, the author who has created the biggest impact
on the topic, Bent Flyvbjerg, is also based in Europe and has one of his 35 papers referenced
by the paper set examined over 90 times. Within the relevant papers a variety of research
methods were applied with the use of questionnaire and/or statistical analysis being the
most popular.
In a nutshell, the topic is of great importance for the improvement of time management
through better estimations and there is a critical mass of researchers working on it.
However, there are still many unexplored areas that give rise for the adoption of a new
research agenda as the one presented in Section 4 of this paper.

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Corresponding author
James Prater can be contacted at: james.prater@mymail.unisa.edu.au

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