< News
May 12, 2025
Project success hinges not only on sound planning and technical execution, but on the clarity and objectivity of the decisions made along the way. In capital-intensive environments like food and beverage manufacturing, even subtle judgement errors can carry significant costs.
Yet no matter how experienced the team, project managers are still human. And humans are subject to biases, often unconscious,that distort decision-making. Particularly under pressure or in complex scenarios.
At TEG Projects, we’ve seen how these cognitive traps play out in real-world food and beverage manufacturing sector projects across Australasia. Our role is not just to deliver technical solutions, but to apply a robust and transparent project management process that actively guards against these hidden risks.
This article explores the key biases affecting capital project delivery, how they impact outcomes, and what can be done to mitigate them through structured processes and clear-eyed consultancy support.
What is the Project Management Process?
Project management is the structured application of knowledge, tools, and techniques to achieve defined objectives within scope, time, and budget constraints. For capital projects in manufacturing environments, this means coordinating design, procurement, construction, compliance, and commissioning, across multiple stakeholders.
Understanding the full project lifecycle is key. It begins with initiation and feasibility, followed by detailed planning and design. Once funding is secured, attention turns to procurement and scheduling. From there, the execution phase kicks off, with site works managed closely alongside supplier and contractor timelines. Finally, monitoring and control ensures quality and budget alignment, before transitioning to project close-out and operational handover.
This structured flow helps define project management process stages. However, even within these formal frameworks, biases can creep in – shaping assumptions, clouding judgement, and increasing risk.
Common Biases That Can Undermine Capital Projects
One of the most pervasive is confirmation bias. This occurs when decision-makers give more weight to information that supports their initial views and dismiss contradictory evidence. For example, a feasibility study might downplay emerging risks simply because they don’t align with early expectations. TEG mitigates this by ensuring feasibility phases include structured peer reviews and independent validation of key assumptions.
Overconfidence bias is another frequent challenge. Project leaders may overestimate their control over timelines or resource demands. This typically leads to underdeveloped contingency plans and unrealistic scheduling. At TEG, our project managers apply delivery estimates based not on best-case assumptions, but on data from comparable past projects based on their extensive experience.
Closely related is optimism bias, where there’s an inherent belief that things will go better than they usually do. We’ve seen clients prepare for six-week installations that ultimately took twice as long due to underestimated commissioning times. Through rigorous front-end planning, we guide clients to take a more grounded view of cost, duration, and effort, often avoiding painful mid-project rework.
Anchoring bias often shows up during budgeting or early-stage design. An initial cost estimate or design concept can become so fixed in the team’s mindset that alternative solutions are dismissed, even when better data becomes available. At TEG, our stage-gated review process encourages clients to reassess plans at each major decision point, enabling more agile, fact-based planning.
Then there’s hindsight bias. Once a project wraps up, it’s tempting to see every outcome as having been predictable. This limits learning and fosters complacency. We counter this with a structured close-out process that goes beyond surface-level reflection, helping teams to extract meaningful lessons that feed back into future initiatives, and ensuring a process of continuous improvement.
A particularly costly bias is the sunk cost fallacy. When significant time or money has been invested in a project, stakeholders may feel compelled to continue, even if updated analysis shows the project is no longer viable. TEG has helped clients make difficult but necessary calls at the feasibility stage, providing clear cost-benefit analysis and scenario planning to support rational decision-making.
Availability bias presents another trap. Project Managers may rely on the most easily recalled data points, rather than seeking comprehensive and balanced evidence. In many cases, procurement decisions are made based on a supplier’s past performance, without revisiting the current status of the supplier’s ability to deliver. This can result in missed risks or misalignment with the project’s current requirements.
Finally, recency bias can lead to overreactions to recent events. If a recent supplier issue or cost spike is fresh in mind, it can disproportionately affect strategic direction. TEG counters this by helping clients zoom out, viewing recent events in the context of longer-term performance trends and operational needs.
Addressing Bias Through Process Discipline
Awareness is only the first step. At TEG, we embed bias mitigation strategies directly into our project delivery framework. This starts at the feasibility and concept design stages. By engaging senior consultants across our team, who weren’t involved in the original planning, we ensure fresh eyes on assumptions and design logic.
We also conduct formal risk assessments using proven techniques, which expose vulnerabilities early and help clients prepare mitigation strategies before they become issues.
Stage gates are another essential tool. These formal checkpoints require project sponsors and delivery teams to review progress against agreed criteria before advancing to the next phase. They provide the structure needed to revisit key decisions as new information becomes available.
Throughout delivery, our teams actively support transparent decision-making, facilitating open forums where multiple perspectives are welcomed. We’ve seen time and again that the best decisions come from diverse input, not from consensus alone.
Importantly, we draw on a wide pool of real project data. Whether it’s installation duration, procurement lead times, or cost indices, our insights are based not on guesswork, but on what’s been delivered across similar scopes in the same industries.
Why Partner with TEG?
Clients across New Zealand’s food and beverage manufacturing and industrial sectors partner with TEG because of our ability to combine rigorous technical capability with practical, bias-aware leadership. Whether it’s the consolidation of manufacturing and warehousing, reconfiguring a processing facility, or upgrading utilities and automation systems, our Project Managers act as trusted extensions of your internal teams.
We don’t just bring engineering expertise. We bring a methodology honed through many years of successful capital projects. Our services are particularly valuable where high-stakes capital decisions need to be made, and where strategic clarity is just as important as technical execution.
For businesses seeking seconded project management in New Zealand and across Australasia, TEG offers full-spectrum capability. Our consultants not only understand the complexity of capital plans, but how to deliver capital projects in the unique context of the manufacturing industry.
Biases are inevitable. But their influence doesn’t need to be. With the right project management steps and process in place, alongside an experienced project delivery partner, your capital projects can be delivered with greater confidence, agility, and resilience.
At TEG Projects, we help our clients define the path forward, avoid costly missteps, and bring complex industrial visions to life. If you’re preparing for your next major investment or facing challenges in your current portfolio, we’d be happy to share how our approach could support your success.
Get in touch to learn how we can help you manage your next project with clarity and confidence.
