1.
Heuristics and biases
impacting creativity
Pavan Soni
Innovation Evangelist and Researcher
Innovation.evangelist@gmail.com
www.pavansoni.com

2.
Biases and heuristics impacting creativity and
innovation
• Sunk-cost fallacy (allocating funds to failing innovations)
• Confirmation bias (not picking up newer projects)
• Hindsight bias (reasoning for failed innovations)
• Groupthink (while shortlisting ideas)
• Social loafing (especially in brainstorming)
• Motivational crowding (rewarding for ideas and not implementation)
• Simple logic (fast decision on project choices)

3.
Sunk cost fallacy
(loss aversion, outcome bias, effort justification, inability to close the doors)
Reasoning that further investment
is warranted on the fact that the
resources already invested will be
lost otherwise, not taking into
consideration the overall losses
involved in the further
investment.
3
Don’t throw good money after bad money

4.
Confirmation bias
(availability bias, coincidence, illusion of attention, future-positive effect)
Tendency to interpret new
information so that it becomes
compatible with our existing
theories, beliefs and convictions.
4
Always look for disconfirming evidence first

5.
Hindsight bias
(fallacy of single cause, story bias, forecast illusion, self-serving bias)
I told you phenomenon: In
retrospect, everything seems clear
and inevitable.
Happens because of
overconfidence.
5
Admit how poor forecasters you are!

6.
Groupthink
(social proof, planning fallacy, in-group out-group-bias, planning fallacy)
A group of smart people make
reckless decisions because
everyone aligns their opinions
with the supposed consensus.
6
Question tacit assumptions, even if you risk
expulsion from the warm nest.

7.
Social loafing
(motivation crowding, social proof, loss aversion)
When people work together
individual performance decreases.
Individual performance is not
directly visible and blends into
group efforts.
7
Making individual performance as visible as
possible. Keep groups small and consisting of
diverse and specialized people.

8.
Motivational crowding
(incentive super-response tendency, reciprocity)
Small- surprisingly small-
monetary incentives crowd out
other types of incentives.
Financial reward erodes any other
motivations.
8
Make the job inspiring and not just rewarding.

9.
Simple logic
(decision fatigue, Gambler’s fallacy)
Rational consideration requires
more willpower than simply giving
in to intuition.
9
Make the job inspiring and not just rewarding.
Answer these questions fast:
1. In a department store, a ping-pong paddle
and a plastic ball cost $1.10. If the paddle
costs $1 more, how much is the ball?
2. In a textile factory, five machines take
exactly five minutes to make five shirts.
How many minutes will it take 100
machines to produce 100 shirts?
3. A pong has water lilies growing in it. The
flowers multiple quickly, each day doubling
the area they take up. If it takes 48 days for
the pond to be completely covered with
water lilies, how many days will it take to be
half covered?
4. You are travelling from point A to B. on the
way there, you drive at 100 mph, and on
way back at 50 mph. What’s your average
speed?

10.
Sources
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