I think Steve McConnell was calling for statistical modelling even earlier than that. Definitely not a new idea! I'm working on the assumption that it hasn't c

I think Steve McConnell was calling for statistical modelling even earlier than that. Definitely not a new idea! I'm working on the assumption that it hasn't caught on because it's a pain to do without proper tooling; but it's also true that many engineers believe estimation is useless, impossible, and a waste of time or worse. It can be hard to overcome the pain of having been burned by a too-tight timeline.