---
id: 2025-11-21T10:11:00-0500
title: 2025-11-21 10:11:??
tags:
  - status/complete
  - topic/estimating
  - topic/organization
daily: "[[2025-11-21]]"
---
# 2025-11-21 10:11:??

## "Hours Burned vs. Hours Earned"

%%
A criticism of [[earned-value-management]] in [[construction]].
%%

> [!quote] [ELECTRI's Industry Benchmarking Tool - ELECTRI International](https://www.electri.org/research-overview/electris-industry-benchmarking-tool/)
> ### Hours Burned vs. Hours Earned
>
> Definition:
> Comparison between portion of project estimated hours complete
> compared with the actual hours spent on the task.
> This is the labor performance factor
> (needs to reference the labor factor used at bid time for a full comparison).

This is a terribly problematic metric.

If a project went over its material budget
despite standard rigorous oversight
where would you first look,
operations or estimating?
In almost all cases the safer bet is estimating.
Why should labor be different?

Wherever there is budget variance
there is a persistent tendency to blame construction
before estimating.

[[purpose-of-construction-estimating#The Myth of Estimate Accuracy]]
