[DougWebb]

I ran into the same problem, and eventually the only workable solution was to use ranges within the software development group, but to only communicate the high end of the range to the project management group and executive team. Most of the time our projects came in "under budget" this way, which seems self-serving, and sometimes projects we thought we could complete on-time were shelved as being too-expensive, but whenever we tried to give those groups better information (eg: the range) they always went straight for the low-end and gave that out to marketing and other groups as a committed deadline date.