2026-02-04 08:07:00

Questions for ConEst

conest

Purpose of ConEst

What is the purpose of ConEst? To comb for requirements pdi-bid-estimating missed? To create the CBOM for pdi-operations? Anything else? How do they rank in importance?

Why are other departments so confused about ConEst's purpose? (Ops stakeholder auditing CBOM to joel-jansen: "missing screws") If we don't know, and Ops doesn't know, who does? That is, who defines our purpose?

ConEst Organization

What freedom does ConEst have to change its process and deliverables? Suppose a plan to have Bid, with their request for ConEst, articulate certain requirements which they must have possessed to produce the bid estimate. Who would be involved in the change? Who would be the one to deny the request?

If Bid's proposals are audited, why do they still cause ConEst constant headache? ("local lighting control")

Estimators and seniors are biased towards imprecision because its tolerance reduces monotonous work, but the logical conclusion of such bias is a Bid estimate. Obviously there is an ideal compromise between 1:1 takeoff to install and a square foot budget that ConEst is intended to produce.

Who is ultimately responsible for defining the position of that point on the spectrum? How is it defined? How is it expected to be communicated to seniors and estimators?

Process Variation

What is an acceptable level of process variance senior to senior? To my mind the answer ought to be "none" or at least "as little as possible", since our process benefits greatly from every bit of consistency we can maintain, saying nothing of the fact that there usually is a better option between two. What's being done to address the variance which exists? What's being done to prevent it from re-emerging?

It is my belief that the most practical solution is the frequent rotation of estimators in senior teams. It is in the interest of estimators that their personal heuristics not depend on who they're working for, so they can be expected to call attention to inconsistency allowing it to be addressed permanently.

The only other option I can imagine is to document exact procedures for every scenario, which is obviously foolhardy.

Less Important

Proposal Transparency

Am I alone in feeling that our proposals are deceptive beyond reasonable explanation? Would I be better of keeping my mouth shut about it?

Incentives

Bonuses based on awarded profit incentivize problematic behavior (game-theory#Stag Hunt). Has such behavior been observed, or has chief strategy been organization-aligned in spite of the incentive to defect?

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