# Matthieu Cneude - 8 Cognitive Biases in Software Development (Highlights)  ## Highlights - We’ll learn what are cognitive biases and how they can pop up in our work, as software developers. - We’ll see different techniques to prevent these biases, to take more logical decisions. - programming is about - problem solving - What’s a Cognitive Bias? - The way a particular person understands events, facts, and other people, which is based on their own particular set of beliefs and experiences and may not be reasonable or accurate. - The Optimistic Bias and the Overconfidence bias - Debiasing the Optimistic Bias - Ask Directed Questions - The Double Loop Learning - frame the problems differently, with another mental model than the primary one used. - Smaller Tasks Are Easier - Logging the Estimations - Another good idea: each time your estimations are wrong, ask yourself why. - Confirmation Bias and Wishful Thinking - you’ll pay attention to source of information which confirm your existing believes, and ignore the ones which challenge them. - Debiasing the Confirmation Bias - Tests For Failures - find evidence of problems instead of evidences that everything work. - Traceability - Look for patterns, see if multiple bugs are the result of more general, broader assumptions created by the confirmation bias. - No More Assumptions - First, you need to find out that it’s possibly an assumption. - Then, try to find what could make the assumption wrong. - The Anchoring bias - The anchoring bias occurs when you fix your opinion on the initial information you’ve got, again without further thinking or research. - Debiasing the Anchoring - Model Based Forecasting - Another way to debias anchors on estimations is simply to ask people not to focus on the estimation itself, but on the task. - Multiple Opinions are Better Than One - The Bandwagon Effect and the Cargo Cult - The bandwagon effect align your opinion with the majority’s opinion, or what you perceive as the majority. - cargo cult: following blindly what the others do. - Value is Everything - Debiasing The Bandwagon Effect - “Senior” Developers Are Not Better Than You - Don’t trust somebody’s opinion because of his background. - Blaming Others, Excusing Yourself - Blame never helped anybody, or solved anything. - Try to assess the problem, and find a solution.