[abetlen]

My go-to heuristic is three point estimation, basically a weighted average of the best, worst, and average case [0].

(Best + Worst + 4 * Average) / 6

One nice property is that it imposes a distribution that adjusts for longer tailed risks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-point_estimation

[redcalx]

So one question here is: Why reduce the distribution (with long tail or whatever) to a single estimate number? If the distribution represents the range of possible outcomes well, then the single number throws away most of the information in the distribution.

[netghost]

I strongly agree, giving people the distribution conveys a lot of information especially if everyone is clear on what the parameters of that distribution mean (ie: what's the low estimate mean?).

At the same time, there are occasions where it can be useful to collapse a distribution for some types of reports, or for quickly looking across estimates.