Truth, Lies or Allies? The Agency of Estimates

Abstract

Estimates – whether a project budget or a patronage forecast – are problematic planning artefacts. Current scholarship seems divided between those that hold estimates as objective statements and those who see them as rationalities of the powerful. Both constructs, if allowed, constrain the planners’ agency in daily practice. These worldviews can be reconciled if estimates are acknowledged as social constructs. I explore this alternative view by re-examining Wachs’ classic case of When planners lie with numbers and an example from my own experience. The analysis uses ANT to make explicit the tacit knowledge gained through working with estimates in practice.

Keywords:

• Planning
• estimates
• practice
• phronesis
• Actor-Network Theory

Acknowledgements

The insights reported in this paper were acquired while completing a PhD program at RIMT University under the generous and insightful supervision of Prof Jago Dodson and Prof Robin Goodman. The first draft was significantly revised following the frank feedback from my colleagues, Dr David Weeks and Dr Crystal Legacy. Further drafts were developed with the helpful and persistent suggestions of the journal’s anonymous reviewers. I am indebted to them all.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Eric Keys

Eric Keys has been practising planning for over 30 years. Initially trained as an engineer, he spent most of his career as a transport planner developing projects and policies. Since retiring from full-time employment, he has been awarded a PhD. His thesis was an auto-ethnographic account of planning within a major project delivered through a public-private partnership.