We don't use astrology in hiring, yet we search for the root cause in our postmortems. We don't hammer screws into wood, yet we bring the same code review process to a new company that we utilized at a previous job. We don’t rely on fortune cookie predictions for new feature success, yet we sometimes treat engineers’ estimates as exact timelines.

With the progress in behavioral economics and psychology we understand better how deeply irrational human beings can be. We inherit the status quo of our processes and rarely question it. However, many of the processes are the results of numerous cognitive biases and mental sets.

In this talk, I present a rational approach to work that allows us to recognize where intuition and "common sense" fail us, act more rationally, make optimal decisions, and work happier.

preferred duration: 30 minutes
target audience: IT folks, from managers to engineers