The primary challenge of project managers is to achieve all project goals and objectives while honoring the preconceived constraints, such as scope, time, quality and budget. In the hasty search for solutions, bad decisions can be made simply because they do not stop to think about what should be done, increasing susceptibility to cognitive biases. This situation worsens when the product being developed is flexible, uncertain, innovative and weakly, such as software is.
This study aimed to shed light on IT project managers' awareness and susceptibility to cognitive biases as well as the tools and techniques used by them to minimize their negative effects. Agile practices and knowledge management activities with emphasis on knowledge storage in lessons learned bases and knowledge sharing in order to gain opinion of others, including experts, were cited as alternative solutions to minimize the negative effects of cognitive biases.
Although the sample is composed by only ten project managers, including those ones who participated of interviews and triangulation, this study resulted in important insights, contributing to human aspects of project management. In future studies, a larger sample of project managers can be used, including those ones from different organizations and from different industries in order to give a broader overview of this issue. In addition, other biases should also be evaluated.