Observation issues and root cause analysis

Glen B. Alleman challenges approaches to reducing uncertainty in software cost development estimates. He acknowledges the evidence pointing to an estimation problem – which he says is an as yet unsolved root cause – but alerts that the execution side is also a root cause:

To date both sides of the problem are unsolved and there for we have Open Loop Control with neither the proper steering target nor the proper control of the system to steer toward that target. Without corrections to both estimating, planning, scheduling, and execution, there is little hope in improving the probability of success in the software development domain.