Cognitive BiasesPublic knowledge library

Practice Lab

Work & project decisions

Learn to connect a practical check with the evidence-reviewed lens behind it. A real situation can involve several patterns, so each exercise asks for the best first lens among the listed options, not a diagnosis.

How to use this set

Read the check. Choose a lens. Then inspect the evidence.

Use these evidence-reviewed lenses when a team is choosing a direction, interpreting results, deciding whether to continue, or turning metrics into action.

Read the full decision guide before or after the set.

Exercise 1 of 6

In work & project decisions, which lens does this check belong to: “What evidence would make us abandon or materially change the preferred explanation?”

  1. Confirmation Bias
  2. Outcome Bias
  3. Hindsight Bias
Show the best first lens

Confirmation Bias

What evidence would make us abandon or materially change the preferred explanation?

Evidence note Confirmation bias is an umbrella label for several ways existing beliefs or hypotheses can influence information search and interpretation. It should not be reduced to one behaviour such as reading only agreeable news, and a preference for confirming tests is not irrational in every task or environment.

Read the evidence review · Open the decision guide

Exercise 2 of 6

In work & project decisions, which lens does this check belong to: “Would we rate this decision process the same way if the outcome had gone the other direction?”

  1. Hindsight Bias
  2. Moral Luck
  3. Outcome Bias
Show the best first lens

Outcome Bias

Would we rate this decision process the same way if the outcome had gone the other direction?

Evidence note Outcome bias occurs when knowledge of a result changes how people evaluate the quality of a decision even when the information available at the time of the decision is held constant. Outcomes can still be relevant for learning, so the error is not 'never look at results'; it is using luck or hindsight as if it had been available to the original decision-maker.

Read the evidence review · Open the decision guide

Exercise 3 of 6

In work & project decisions, which lens does this check belong to: “What did our actual pre-outcome forecast or notes say before the result became obvious?”

  1. Escalation of Commitment
  2. Hindsight Bias
  3. Moral Luck
Show the best first lens

Hindsight Bias

What did our actual pre-outcome forecast or notes say before the result became obvious?

Evidence note Knowing an outcome can make the outcome look more predictable in retrospect. The effect has been studied for decades and across many settings, but it does not mean that every confident explanation after an event is biased.

Read the evidence review · Open the decision guide

Exercise 4 of 6

In work & project decisions, which lens does this check belong to: “Would we assign the same blame or praise if the decision-maker had the same intent, beliefs, and controllable risk but luck produced a different outcome?”

  1. Moral Luck
  2. Escalation of Commitment
  3. Surrogation
Show the best first lens

Moral Luck

Would we assign the same blame or praise if the decision-maker had the same intent, beliefs, and controllable risk but luck produced a different outcome?

Evidence note Resultant moral luck describes cases where judgments of blame, punishment, or moral evaluation differ because otherwise similar actions lead to different outcomes partly outside the agent's control. Outcome information does affect moral judgment in experiments, but the effect should not be reduced to 'people ignore intent.' Mental states, causal responsibility, belief justification, negligence, and the kind of moral judgment being asked about all matter. Some studies find that false or unjustified beliefs explain more of classic moral-luck asymmetries than the bad outcome itself, while still detecting an independent outcome effect.

Read the evidence review · Open the decision guide

Exercise 5 of 6

In work & project decisions, which lens does this check belong to: “If we had not already invested anything, would we still fund the next step on its future merits?”

  1. Surrogation
  2. Confirmation Bias
  3. Escalation of Commitment
Show the best first lens

Escalation of Commitment

If we had not already invested anything, would we still fund the next step on its future merits?

Evidence note Sunk-cost effects and escalation of commitment overlap but are not interchangeable. Sunk-cost research asks whether irrecoverable prior investments influence current choices. Escalation of commitment describes persistence or additional resource allocation to a failing course of action and can also be driven by personal responsibility, self-justification, project structure, and other factors.

Read the evidence review · Open the decision guide

Exercise 6 of 6

In work & project decisions, which lens does this check belong to: “What underlying goal is this metric supposed to represent, and where can the proxy diverge from it?”

  1. Outcome Bias
  2. Surrogation
  3. Confirmation Bias
Show the best first lens

Surrogation

What underlying goal is this metric supposed to represent, and where can the proxy diverge from it?

Evidence note Surrogation is a domain-specific management-accounting construct: a measure that was designed to represent a strategic objective can start to be treated as though it were the objective itself. It is closely related to metric fixation and proxy problems, but those broader labels should not be treated as exact synonyms without checking the setting and mechanism.

Read the evidence review · Open the decision guide