Assumptions and vicious cycles

Many months ago, I had a discussion with an IT consultant that we were about to engage to work on a project for a client. At one stage, after establishing the costs of engaging his team to do the project, I asked how long will it take to put together the system for a client.

I was surprised at his reply that it would take 4 months. I felt that it can be done in 3 and with good reasons. So I continued to ask, what is it that has to be done and how he intends to do it. As he explained, I could see that he was very confident about what has to be done and how he intends to do it, while being less and less sure about the 4 month time-frame. And me, I was beginning to be convinced that he knows his stuff and also more convinced that it can be done in less than 4 months. So what has this to do with assumptions?

Well, after all the explainations of the project activities, I continue to query the 4 month duration, "Knowing what we know now, do you still think it will take 4 months?", "Sure? four months?", "This activity, it takes 2 weeks?", etc. To which his replies really began to be less and less confident.

Thinking that I was so I smart, that I managed to ask enough questions to show him how the schedule can be further shortened, I kept quiet for him to gather his thoughts and think through what the new time frame is.

Which he did. He thought through the new time-frame required to do the project. And said, "You are right, it's not 4 months." Hah, even as the knowing smile start across my face, it was stuck at midpoint when he continued, "We'll need at least 6 months."

Apparently, all along the discussion, whenever I asked about the 4 months duration, he thought that I felt it was too short and unrealistic, so he was trying to convince me how smart he is and how good his execution is that he needs only 4 months. In my mind, 4 months was too long and can be cut to 3 months without extra effort or expenses.

(Just to digress, never negotiate timeframe and fees at the same time. It puts the consultants in a conflict because if he agrees to a shorter timeframe, his fees are also reduced. So they'll never agree to a shorter timeframe unless the fees is already fixed and agreed upon. And once you start a nego on time and fees together, it is difficult to separate them later. More on these if anyone indicates an interest in such)

So, we were discussing the same thing with different assumptions. I assumed that he was looking at how to cut from the 4 months, and he was looking at whether the 4 months was enough.

Funny how these things happen.

Many years ago, I had this friend who told me that he and his girlfriend (both from Ipoh) was going back to Ipoh over the weekend because his girlfriend wanted to go back to visit her parents. And a while later, the girlfriend was telling me how he was worried about his parents and so they are going back to see his parents. And I happen to know that neither really wanted to go back to Ipoh for the weekend. So the puzzle begs to be solved.

Apparently, she thought that he was worried about his parents and therefore asked him whether he wanted to go to Ipoh. He thought that she wanted to go visit her parents, so he said yes. And because he said yes, she agreed too. If I didn't bring the 2 of them together and asked them a few questions, the two of them would have reluctantly gone to Ipoh because of the other.

So many examples of such happening. Is it the assumptions? Why do we make assumptions if it is really so misleading. Maybe we should classify the assumptions, and in many cases, it is the ambiguity of a situation that misleads. Perhaps we should just state our intentions clearly, instead of trying to be nice.

I am sure you too can recall cases where a group of friends supposedly arranging for an enjoyable dinner gathering end up having lunch in an inconvenient location or food that no one likes or on a date where only 4 of the 7 are available or all the above, because everyone wants to be nice and accomodating. If you don't, I'll introduce you to some of my friends.

Anyway, so do you have similar experiences?

While the examples above are trivial, some have serious consequences, imagine the following:
* Country X was accused of being in the final stages of developing nuclear weapons and the neighbours (Y and Z) threaten to attack them in order to disable the nuclear capabilities. X thinks that Y and Z will be afraid of a nuclear war, so X declares that it has nuclear warheads pointed at Y and Z. Because Y and Z is now threatened, Y and Z wants to attack. And because Y and Z wants to attack, X starts shooting missiles without warheads ... and so on...

* A wife suspects that the husband is having an affair and accuses him, so a fight starts. Because there are always arguments at home, the husband is reluctant to go home until late at night. Because he goes home late at night, the wife now believes that he is having an affair and the fighting intensify. Which means he is even more reluctant to return home, which then confirms the wife's belief....

What simple mechanisms can we put in place to reduce being mislead by assumptions of these sort?