A forecast presented as a single confident number is a comforting fiction. The future arrives as a range, and pretending otherwise doesn't make planning easier — it just makes the eventual miss more expensive.
Ranges, not false precision
"We'll do $4.2M" sounds rigorous and is almost certainly wrong to the dollar. "We'll do $3.6M to $4.6M, most likely around $4.1M" is less satisfying and far more useful — it tells you the shape of the uncertainty, which is the thing you actually need to plan around. A point estimate hides the risk; a range names it.
An honest forecast:
- Shows a low, likely, and high case — and what would drive each.
- Separates what's contracted from what's merely hoped.
- States plainly what it assumes, so a broken assumption is a known event, not a surprise.
False precision isn't more rigorous than a range. It's just a way of hiding how much you don't know — until the moment it stops being hidden.
Leadership doesn't need the comfort of a single number; it needs an accurate picture of the uncertainty. Give it a range and the reasoning behind it, and you'll get better decisions — and far more trust when the real number lands inside the band you named.