1) Explore the topic of cognitive biases and identify two of them which are particularly relevant to you (beyond those mentioned in PPT slides). Recall some situations in your past when you were susceptible to these biases. How did they influence your actions? How can you avoid getting in situations like these in future? 2) Talk to any two of your classmates, preferably from other countries, and share your findings with each other. What new perspectives have you got from this discussion? Cognitive bias is an occurrence of mental error when the brain attempts to simplify complex information according to ones' personal perspective, thinking, experience, preferences, memory, observations, and other mental patterns. Bandwagon bias - In this type of effect, a person tends to adopt and follow a particular fashion, behaviour, or style just because everyone is doing the same. It is group thinking that encourages more and more people to "hop on the bandwagon". When it seems that everyone is doing something, there is a tremendous pressure to conform, which is perhaps why the bandwagon behaviours tend to form so easily. (Cherry, 2020) At my first job at HSBC as a business tester on the project, I realised my colleagues were following sample formats for writing the test cases which was not the right thing to do. Within the team everyone was following a similar template, I followed it too for a longer period until the concern was raised by my manager. I realised that following crowd is not the right thing to do, being yourself and unique separates you from others. Hence, adhering to the company policies and regulations is right but copying what others are doing may not be the right choice to make. Putting extra effort into your work such as customise the transcripts as per requirement was the constructive step that helped me to be more efficient and become ethically popular at my workplace. Also distancing for while from that social group was the right way to diminish the bandwagon bias effect. Another bias is Hindsight Bias psychological tendency of people to overestimate their ability to predict the results beforehand or prior to the incident occurring. The actual outcome has no relation to these predictions. A similar incident happened to me when I estimated that the production fix which was added after making relevant changes will not work in a software development project. It did happen due to which our whole team had to sit back longer to resolve the issue. When the manager announced we might have stuck around a little late I said, "I was sure it would happen". Thereafter, I realised that I am good at predicting things that are obviously not true. Hence, the best way to avoid this is simply to stop overthinking and forecasting events that may or may not happen. After discussing this with Fernanda from Brazil we found similar efforts can help us both to avoid cognitive bias. In both the situation of familiarity bias and Bandwagon bias, we took the same approach to overcome its effect which is applying new ideas to well-established patterns can have a positive impact on ourselves and our work. Additionally, in conversation with Bhushan from India who explained the in-attentional bias to me, and we found another common ground between Hindsight Bias and in- attentional bias. To resolve the situation, we need to keep focusing on the main path instead of getting distracted which also reduces the impact of overthinking in Hindsight Bias that gives an illusional picture of forecasting the outcome