The project uniqueness bias is well explained in the Oxford Handbook for Megaproject management. It is the “tendency of planners and managers to see their projects as singular.”
This bias is very common in all technology projects (engineers always try to invent new things or improve the existing), and also in other types of projects. It also exists in other situations, linked to the particular situation of the project. It generally feels good to convince oneself that the project is a unique challenge.
The bias has many consequences, among which the dismissal of benchmarks from the industry to make the project plan more robust, and more generally a sort of arrogance based on the legitimacy of doing something for the first time.
But then of course it “impedes managers’ learning , because they think they have nothing to learn from other projects as their own project is unique. This lack of learning may explain why mangers who see their projects as unique perform significantly worse than other managers” and thus “project managers who think their project is unique are therefore a liability to their project and organisations“
Beware of the uniqueness bias. What we do is often building for most of it on the existing, with a few tweaks and add-ons. Let’s recognize that the share of uniqueness is most limited.
