zlacker

I understood the fuzzy labels to still only refer to a specific probability range, e.g. the meaning of "aggressive but possible" to relate to the likes of your I'm 95 % certain it will be done no later than nine months from now... example. Those labels seemed to at least help explain "this isn't just a high ball figure".

To be honest I still don't really think any of this stuff can be truly verified beyond actually doing it or having a very well understood set of requirements that have been worked against plenty of times before.

>>jaymzc+(OP)
Sure, but it's important to spell out exactly which probability range they refer to -- unless you ground people in concrete numbers, they have a tendency to think they mean the same thing but actually mean very different things. (This is known as the illusion of agreement, for further reference.)

About verification I think you're right in a very specific sense: you clearly cannot verify that any single estimation is correct, range or not. However, meteorologists and other people dealing with inherent and impenetrable uncertainty have found out that a historic record of accuracy is as good as verification.