The estimate is six days. The average is eight.

Most firms know their estimates run short. Far fewer know why the number never moves, and the reason is rarely that nobody has the data.

By Steve 5 min read
Abstract bridge artwork for The estimate is six days. The average is eight.

A business that has delivered the same category of work two hundred times has, in principle, all the information it needs to estimate the two hundred and first accurately. The actuals sit in timesheets, job costing, project records. Someone can usually tell you, without looking, that jobs of this type tend to run over. And yet the next estimate comes in at six days, exactly as the last forty did, and lands at eight, exactly as the last forty did. This is not an information problem. It is a structural…

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