[marcoow]

Indeed we disagree. I’d say the reluctance that’s relatively wide spread in particularly among engineers to even try and reduce risk as much as possible (within a limited scope) and framing that as „predicting the future“ is a huge fallacy that doesn’t benefit anyone. There’s just not only the 2 extremes - completely and reliably predicting the future vs. just going off with no plan - but there’s something in the middle.

Also the big picture That one could look at in the beginning of a project and base an estimate on is more often than not not what you end up with at the end of the project anyway.

[stephc_int13]

My main craft is software engineering but I've occupied managing roles in the past, and even twice as the CEO of a small company.

I am perfectly aware of the difficulties of managing projects and keeping clients happy.

From my experience, what you are describing is something few founders are concerned about, because they understand and embrace risk.

On the other hand middle-management is always trying to push their peons to predict the future and accept the liability.

[marcoow]

> On the other hand middle-management is always trying to push their peons to predict the future and accept the liability.

That's bad just middle management then though. It's also why I'm advocating against project managers who would typically/often/sometimes do what you describe here – if you have someone who doesn't actively contribute to the project influence (or dictate in the worst case) timelines, that's deemed to fail from the beginning.