{
  "title": "Forecasting completion times: what a plan alone cannot establish",
  "url": "https://www.shr.swiss/blog/prevoir-un-delai-ce-que-le-plan-ne-suffit-pas-a-etablir-en",
  "language": "en",
  "datePublished": "2026-06-30",
  "publisher": {
    "name": "SHR — Swiss Human Resources",
    "url": "https://www.shr.swiss",
    "address": "Esplanade de Pont-Rouge 9A, 1212 Lancy, Suisse"
  },
  "summary": "A detailed schedule is not necessarily a reliable forecast. Research suggests testing the project scenario against the history of comparable projects.",
  "section": "Research",
  "topic": "Decision-making",
  "place": {
    "name": "Basel",
    "region": "Bâle-Ville",
    "country": "CH"
  },
  "keyPoints": [
    {
      "heading": "What the literature establishes",
      "point": "Roger Buehler, Dale Griffin and Michael Ross (1994, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology) show that, in the tasks studied, people underestimate their completion times and favour future scenarios over past experience."
    },
    {
      "heading": "The mechanism: looking at the project from the outside",
      "point": "Daniel Kahneman and Dan Lovallo (1993, Management Science) offer a theoretical analysis distinguishing the inside view, focused on a project's particular features, from the outside view, based on comparable situations."
    },
    {
      "heading": "The premature conclusion",
      "point": "One might conclude that every deadline simply needs a buffer."
    },
    {
      "heading": "What the evidence cannot guarantee",
      "point": "The tasks examined in the experimental study do not reproduce the interdependencies of a pharmaceutical programme or international R&D."
    },
    {
      "heading": "A practical check in Bâle",
      "point": "As part of SHR's [decision-making](/formation/prise-de-decision/bale) programme, an exercise applicable in Basel is to select a category of recurring milestones in pharma, life sciences, Rhine logistics or international R&D."
    }
  ],
  "sources": [
    {
      "authors": "Ross",
      "year": "1994",
      "source": "Journal of Personality and Social Psychology"
    },
    {
      "authors": "Lovallo",
      "year": "1993",
      "source": "Management Science"
    }
  ],
  "wordCount": 398,
  "image": "https://www.shr.swiss/img/blog-editorial-2026-06-30-en.jpg?v=4",
  "translations": {
    "fr": "https://www.shr.swiss/blog/prevoir-un-delai-ce-que-le-plan-ne-suffit-pas-a-etablir",
    "en": "https://www.shr.swiss/blog/prevoir-un-delai-ce-que-le-plan-ne-suffit-pas-a-etablir-en",
    "de": "https://www.shr.swiss/blog/prevoir-un-delai-ce-que-le-plan-ne-suffit-pas-a-etablir-de",
    "it": "https://www.shr.swiss/blog/prevoir-un-delai-ce-que-le-plan-ne-suffit-pas-a-etablir-it"
  },
  "relatedPages": {
    "programme": "https://www.shr.swiss/formation/prise-de-decision/bale",
    "city": "https://www.shr.swiss/formations-ville/bale",
    "blog": "https://www.shr.swiss/blog"
  },
  "citationPolicy": "Citation autorisée avec mention « SHR — Swiss Human Resources » et lien vers l'article."
}