Cost norm

A norm answers "how much does this work take", separately from "what do those resources cost". Norm-based (resource-based) estimating builds every rate from that split: the norm supplies consumption per unit, current prices supply the money, and either can be updated without disturbing the other.

Norms come from two traditions. In the normative estimating systems of the CIS and several other regions, norms are state-issued, codified and mandatory for public-sector work — estimates are assembled from the official norm base and checked against it during expert review. In market systems, the same role is played by company productivity databases, published references and negotiated labour norms; less codified, same logic.

Norms fail by outliving their conditions. A labour norm encodes a method, a crew composition and a productivity environment; applied to a site with different methods or conditions, it produces precise-looking nonsense. The productivity factor that adjusts a norm to actual conditions is the most consequential and least documented number in a resource-based estimate.