---
id: 2026-05-22T11:57:18-0400
title: 2026-05-22 11:57:18
tags: []
daily: "[[2026-05-22]]"
---
# 2026-05-22 11:57:18

## ConEst's Purpose Considering its Accuracy

I removed [[2026-05-21_16-18-20]]'s plot
because I screwed up the error calculation.
After more rigorous investigation
and more recent project data
(the same new bids are based on)
I'm happier with this one.

![[pdi-estimating-error-kde.png]]

The plot suggests that [[conest]]'s role
is not in decreasing cost [[uncertainty]],
because it does not appear to do so more than marginally.

I'm lead to speculate that our purpose is in determining crew loading,
which is cool with me,
labor is the more interesting part of [[construction-estimating]],
however our methods are not well suited to the purpose.
After all, the majority of it is calculated in [[ms-excel]].
See [[pdi-labor-plan]].

> A less cautious man than I might wonder
> if the negative bias apparent in Bid and ConEst
> is indicative of systematic [[incentives|incentive]] gaming,
> since if it were undesirable
> we could change nothing of our process
> and simply add contingency to address it.

***

> Our use of "WBS" is technically inaccurate.
> The [[pdi-wbs|PDI "WBS"]] is more accurately called
> [[earned-value-management#Schedule|the project schedule]],
> which is the document which defines the planned value of each task.
> On the other hand, project schedule is a terrible name for a specific document,
> so I don't blame us for stealing WBS.
