> (Padding, BTW, may feel dishonest, but it isn't. It is making the assumption that a certain share of you risks will strike and making allowances for that.) T

> (Padding, BTW, may feel dishonest, but it isn't. It is making the assumption that a certain share of you risks will strike and making allowances for that.) This. It helps to realize that when someone asks "how long will X take". What they are actually asking is "When can I rely on X being done by?". If you say 2 days and it takes one, no problem. But if you say one and it takes 2, they've already told the client it'll be done tomorrow, arranged for the machinery to be in place, and now everything is jammed up based on your delay. Estimating is as much art as science and requires understanding the context around the estimate and how it will be used.