---
id: 2026-04-29T20:25:22-0400
title: 2026-04-29 20:25:22
tags:
  - topic/estimating
daily: "[[2026-04-29]]"
---
# 2026-04-29 20:25:22

## Heterodox Construction Estimating

As a lifelong pedant, hater, contrarian, etc.
when I first heard of [[heterodoxy]]
as applied to highly-opinionated professional disciplines
I thought immediately of my own highly-opinionated discipline
in [[construction-estimating]].

The existence of a heterodoxy requires that of an orthodoxy,
and I believe [[holt_2023_estimating]] is typical of it.
Construction estimating is simply finding the optimal price for a service,
a process necessary of all service industries,
frequently stated to be more art than science.
Orthodox estimators may parrot the same refrain,
but their own process is neither art nor science.
It's much more like doing taxes:
prolonged, tedious, opaque, over-complicated,
and ultimately resulting in a value that no one is satisfied with,
but that they have no basis to question.

Also like taxes,
orthodox estimating methods are assumed obligatory,
but you can actually do whatever you want.
It's a free country, man.
