[jdmichal]

You will never know what you don't know. That doesn't change. The question is, what do you do about it? That tunneling project probably did account encountering different materials, but maybe not for unobtainium. If the area is known for unobtainium, that's obviously a research miss. If this is the first seam ever encountered within 500 miles, that's straight up unexpected findings. Most situations usually lie somewhere in between.

You can always do more research, but research is at the cost of getting things done. So you balance that, with the understanding that sometimes you will go into projects with too little research. And no matter how much research you do, you will occasionally get genuine unexpected findings while doing the work that cause you to stop and go back into research mode.

EDIT: I mean, just watch those DIY shows some. Almost every episode, there is something "unexpected". Foundation work, roof work, load bearing walls, pipes and vents in walls, electrical or plumbing needs updating, etc. And it rarely ever actually effects their timeline, because they've done it enough to model that something unexpected is probably going to happen.

[52-6F-62]

I wholeheartedly agree. I think it’s however more of an unacceptable problem in non technical industries who hire technical workers.

For instance, risk assessment isn’t all that helpful if your deadlines are bumped up by weeks or months and the client or your coworkers or bosses have no concept of why the project “can’t just be done immediately” when you’ve planned for added weeks. Even worse when they don’t understand why they can’t suddemly throw new variables at you after all estimates have been completed like new, potentially breaking features. Last minute scope creep is a real problem in some non-technical fields because the whole software solution is often some “nerd magic” and there’s no desire to understand the problem or solution except where to click and can they have it all by the end of the week. Theoretically maybe it could be done, but there goes all window provided for unexpecteds.

Admittedly, this is probably more of an organizational flaw than directly associated with the subject at hand, but a very real tangent.

[marcus_holmes]

I usually try to explain this using a sporting analogy, because the people who treat this as a "nerd problem" usually understand and relate to sporting analogies.

Why can't you hit a hole-in-one on every shot on a golf course? You know exactly where the ball is, where the hole is, how far it is, which way the wind is blowing. All you have to do is hit the ball so it goes in the hole. It's definitely possible, there have been hole-in-ones on every green, so why can't you do that for this shot? Are you an incompetent golf player? Are there super-competent golf players who can do this on every shot? Why not? This does not seem difficult to me (but then I've never hit a golf ball in my life). Can you explain why you can't do this, but other people have done it before?

[52-6F-62]

That's pretty good. Hope you don't mind if I end up using that or a variation in the future.

[repolfx]

I'm not sure argument by reality TV is very effective. Obviously everyone tries to budget time for the unexpected. That doesn't mean it's equally difficult in all professions.