Quality Cost Estimates to Serve the Economic Recovery

Since 2005, a number of renowned personalities of the profession have already expressed their views in the Journal of Parametrics and the Journal of Cost Analysis and Parametrics (JCAP) about what makes a good cost estimate (Hartley 2006; Hamaker 2007; Janda 2008; Bagby 2009). All that has been written so far makes a lot of sense, and I fully concur with it, so I am left with the difficult task to add something equally smart. I will quickly list ideas of what makes a quality cost estimate based on what has already been identified by the aforementioned authors, and I invite everyone to read these excellent articles in detail. The term “quality cost estimate” induces notions such as accuracy and effort commensurate with the acquisition stage, completeness including a cost–risk assessment, solidity of the basis of estimate, link to the schedule, realism, non-advocacy, independence, fairness, cross-checks with results derived from independent methods, and communicability. I will then add a few words on some peculiarities that may be of help for further understanding of what quality estimates are: