zmVault/2025-07-18_estimating-isnt-engineering.md

id, aliases, tags

id	aliases	tags
2025-07-18_estimating-isnt-engineering		type/anecdote topic/estimating

Estimating Isn't Engineering

A peer recently expressed frustration to me about the declining quality of construction drawings, specifically how systems are often missing details necessary to price the scope definitively. Specifically, they took issue with having to "be both the estimator and the engineer". This puzzled me because the examples they gave sounded like stereotypical estimation problems.

%% TODO: Example %%

%% TODO: discussion based on the difference between engineering, (which requires knowledge of subject matter) and estimation (which requires knowledge of impact). %%

It's not engineering to budget for the most likely case.

Estimators need not know why there tends to be example, they need need only have basis for applying that generalization to another project.