Estimates, Targets, Quotes: Semantics!

I just had a brief conversation with a project manager on the way back from the coffee hole.  

Part of the problem with waterfall projects is that we have to "estimate" the delivery date and cost at the beginning of the project.  So we take mostly wild guesses and give estimates that we only learn later are unreasonable -- or at least pretty inaccurate.  [Dilbert's project uncertainty principle hits the mark here.] But these estimates set the customer's expectation.  They then get (understandably) bent out of shape when things go down the way they usually do in the real world: late and over budget. 

We usually call our wild guesses "estimates," which most non-technical folks expect to be something like the estimate we get from our car mechanic.  Oddly, the estimate we get from our mechanic is actually more like a quote than an estimate.  Most of the time, the "estimate" is exactly what we pay.

And that's pretty easy for a mechanic to do.  Car parts have been standardized, and the mechanic has done the same thing hundreds of times.  If every car had a custom-designed engine, mechanics would suffer the same difficulty we do.

But to the point, people get upset because they expect our estimates to be equivalent to car mechanic estimates.  So I'm wondering whether -- if you are forced to work in a waterfall world -- would it help to refuse to use the word estimate?  

How about "target" instead?  When you're tumbling in a waterfall, that's more like what you've got -- a target.  You hit it or not depending on the flow and the wind.

Rubout

Our three-year-old found a large pencil eraser last night.  She started rubbing it furiously on my head.  It started to make me wonder.  Was she trying to erase me?