Summary of article The Experience Trap. By: Sengupta, Kishore, Abdel-Hamid, Tarek K., Van Wassenhove, Luk N., Harvard Business Review, 00178012, Feb2008, Vol. 86, Issue 2

“As projects get more complicated, managers stop learning from their experience. It is important to understand how that happens and how to change it.”

The authors of the article made a research on experience-based learning in complex environment. They used a computer-based game to simulate managing a software project from start to finish with a goal to be on time, within budget and with the highest possible quality. In the experiment the simulation games were setup to examine the decision making process of experienced managers in a variety of different context. The results of the experiments showed that managers did not take into account the consequences of their previous decision when they need to make a new decision.

When people make a decision they base on their previous experience and knowledge. In a simple environment cause-and-effect relationships are easy to discover, but on the complex ones, such a software projects, it not always work like that. Authors recognized three causes of the breakdown in the learning and suggested ways for organizations to enable learning form experience in the complex projects.

• Time lags between causes and effects. Example - hiring a new team member during the project creates time lag for hiring and assimilation.

• Fallible estimates. In software project initial estimates usually terns out to be wrong. Managers don't do correction on the productivity estimates during the project.

• Initial goal bias. During the project the scope usually become bigger. Sticking to the initial targets actually create counterproductive outcome.

To fix the experience learning cycle:

• Provide more cognitive feedback.

• Apply model-based decision tools and guidelines.

• Calibrate you forecasting tools to the project.

• Set goals for behavior, not targets for performance

• Develop project “flight simulators”.

Experiments showed that learning on the job will work only in the simple environment, not complicated. Mangers to be successful need to get more formal training and have decision support tools tailored to their specific projects.