Dunning-Kruger and Engineering Estimation

In 1999, David Dunning and Justin Kruger published their research demonstrating conclusively that people unskilled in a domain tend to look down on it, thinking it is less complex, risky, or demanding than it truly is.

This cognitive bias has nothing to do with intelligence or expertise in other domains. If you are unskilled in something, you never assume it is more complex than it is—you assume it is less!

When someone throws their hands in the air saying, “I don’t understand why this is taking so long,” that person really does not understand why you cannot just do A, then B, and then C.

Do not be upset. You should expect this behavior and resolve it correctly by educating those people who, by their own admission, do not understand.