Bias in a Team Setting

Abstract

Bias is the instinctive feeling we have towards people, potentially without having a reason for the feeling that appears. But feelings play a strong part in how we act towards and treat other people. Making unconscious decisions on how you feel about someone will have an effect on your opinion on them as a whole.^[1] Some well-known biases are gender and racial bias. Neuroscientist Erik Kandel estimated that 80-90% of the human brain works unconsciously meaning that even though you try to be unbiased, a part of you will still exhibit a form of bias. ^[2]

Your biases are often something you have developed from social influence and often not with bad intent, but it affects how we behave and perceive things from our peers.^[1] In a team setting, bias affects how we perceive our colleagues and behave towards them and it is therefore under the scope of project management - as can be seen in the Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge section 11.2.2.4^[3]. This also means that the unconscious bias of a project manager can have critical impact on the project setup. The team may not be optimal due to some biases during the hiring process and it can create problems during the project work. The diversity that was needed for the project success will have been stifled by biases. ^[4]

The goal of the article is to highlight how unconscious bias affects teams, where in the project lifecycle the biases appear and how to mitigate them. This article will present several examples of unconscious bias. It will then present ways to combat and mitigate these unconscious biases presented beforehand. Finally, the article will touch on what limitations there are on working against unconscious bias.

References are a work in progress and will be annotated in final hand-in.

The Big Idea

What is Bias?

The general idea of the concept of bias

The types of Bias in a Team

The most common types of bias you can run into

Application

How to Mitigate the Bias as a Project Manager and Facilitator

When you have become aware of bias, how do as a project manager work against these biases Ways to combat and work against bias

PMBOK 5.2.2.6 5.2.2.4 4.1.2.3 4.2.2.3

A tool to combat unconscious bias is facilitation as mentioned in PMBOK 5.2.2.6^[3]. . Facilitation as defined in PMBOK 4.1.2.3 is the ability to effectively guide a group event to a successful decision, solution or conclusion^[3].. A facilitator must ensure all contributions are considered and that any situations that happen because of the group even are dealt with - good or bad. A facilitator should strive to ensure that the best team combination possible is composed for the group event and that no unconscious bias has stood in the way of actions being taken during the group event. This group event is for example a project, that should be led to a successful hand-in to a customer or client.

This also means, that as the facilitator of a project team

4.1 Develop Project Charter

4.2 Develop Project Management Plan