2.5 KiB
id, title, tags, daily
| id | title | tags | daily |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-05-01T20:37:29-0400 | 2026-05-01 20:37:29 | 2026-05-01 |
2026-05-01 20:37:29
Earlier 2026-05-01 while editing orthodox-construction-estimating my frustration with the term "detailed takeoff" was reignited and I searched in vain for the term describing its type:
a name which presupposes some quality of the subject which is not inherent to it.1
My search came up empty, which didn't surprise me, I've never cured a case of lethologica with Google or LLM's. (but I keep trying)
Later I found the answer in merrow_2022_contract-strategies: Merrow regrets the relevance implied by the value-laden term statistical-significance.
It is said often that construction-estimating in some or all part art, not wholly science. This attitude is a coping mechanism excusing our acceptance of a deeply flawed status quo, and our unwillingness to look for answers to questions that our methods have begged for decades.
Due to obstacles discussed in kahneman_2011_thinking repeated in hubbard_2020_failure, construction estimating as a profession suffers from poor conditions for natural improvement of estimator-calibration, namely delayed and uninformative feedback. As a consequence, decisions are made on intuition at best, and superstition at worst. The suitability of estimating methods is judged based on value2 and aesthetic. rather than empirical evidence.
What makes a good estimator (besides their ability to click all the little circles on a drawing) is their judgement, the quality of their assumptions. Herein lies the paradox of orthodox-construction-estimating: assumptions are only necessitated by its incompatibility with uncertainty.
Construction estimating is pure science, acceptability is the art.
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"Detailed takeoff" is more a victim of the common positive connotation of "detailed", which seems to exist for all adjectives synonymous in the same context like "precise". The common connotation is what's frustrating, I suppose. Surely everyone has seen the comparison of the targets and knows that precision says nothing meaningful about performance. ↩︎