Project Cost Estimating and Budgeting

Overview/Description
 Everyone has heard about projects that go over budget. In some cases, these projects are abandoned as a result. Accurate and realistic project cost estimates and budgets play a key role in project success. This course will help you understand project cost estimating and budgeting and increase your chances of success in project management.

Target Audience
 This series is targeted specifically for project managers, project team members, functional managers with employees assigned to project teams, project stakeholders, any team manager or member interested in project management, executives committed to their organization's growth, managers required to take on new challenges, and top managers with vision.

Expected Duration
3.0 hours

Lesson Objectives:

Inputs to Cost Estimating

  • recognize the benefits of using cost estimating inputs.
  • identify the most important step in preparing a work breakdown structure.
  • match the given costing information with categories of resource requirements, resource rates, and chart of accounts.
  • use activity duration estimates to calculate cost estimates, given a scenario.
  • identify the appropriate source of historical information for cost estimating, given a project.

    • Tools and Techniques for Cost Estimating

  • recognize the benefits of understanding the tools and techniques for cost estimating.
  • determine whether the analogous estimating technique is suitable for a given project.
  • determine whether parametric modeling is suitable for a given project.
  • determine whether bottom-up estimating is suitable for a given project.
  • identify the advantages of using computerized tools in cost estimating.

    • Outputs from Cost Estimating

  • recognize the value of the outputs from cost estimating.
  • identify the characteristics of an effective cost estimate.
  • identify the types of supporting detail that should accompany cost estimates.
  • identify the characteristics of a cost management plan.

    • Cost Budgeting

  • recognize the importance of proper cost budgeting.
  • match the inputs to cost budgeting with the role they play in creating a cost baseline.
  • calculate the cost budget for a given project.
  • develop a cumulative cost curve of a project's cost baseline, given a cost budget and project schedule.

    • Course Number: PROJ0252