Protection from Wishful Thinking
Forrest J. Shull · IEEE Software · 2011
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.