Protection from Wishful Thinking

One of the problems of software development is accurately assessing progress and the cost remaining to completion. Without a good sense of where the project is and how far it still has to go, it´s just not possible to consistently manage people and resources well. And miscommunicating progress to stakeholders is among the surest ways to lose trust and buy-in. Even with the best of intentions and good processes in place, it´s possible for projects to end up in serious trouble as a result of misassessing or miscomunicating progress. The paper mentions that optimism is a virtue in many cases, but there is a fine distinction between optimism and wishful thinking.