The baseline of a project is a performance metric for comparison that enables all stakeholders to have a shared and consistent set of data against which to evaluate the work done as the project progresses.
Preparing a budget sheet for a proposed project is a critical activity that helps ensure whether the project is provided with all necessary funds. It aims to confirm direct and indirect project costs are fully covered by the budget, with no cost overruns and underestimates. Let’s find out how to prepare a project budget in three generic steps.
Developing the project budget is a process for allocating administered and departmental funds necessary to build a financial foundation for producing stated project deliverables. When we talk about the project budget and financial resources we mean the solid framework that helps project managers to deal with the “on budget” part of the project implementation process. This framework involves cost planning and control. For successful delivery of the project product, the project manager should effectively estimate costs, track expenditure over time and adequately react to situations when the financial resources are over-spent or under-spent, or there are opportunities for savings in the project budget.
Stating cost projection is an activity carried out during the project initiation phase to identify costs for development, implementation and maintenance of the project. The analysis of costs is a tool of project cost planning and management to identify, estimate and describe total cost of project management initiative. Cost projection statement and analysis are required activities that allow making the project estimated and well-grounded in financial terms. Among other tools, cost projection estimates and spreadsheets are used to develop the project charter. They are developed with help of project costing software.
What is project cost management? It is a suit of activities for estimating, allocating, and controlling costs within the project. Project cost management allows determining and approving budget for the project and controlling spending. For example, in construction project cost management it is vital to estimate cost of building materials, equipment, salary of workers. In IT project cost management it is critical to estimate cost of software development, salary of IT staff and developers. Effective project cost management allows each project to be specific and unique because that project entails costs and requires specific funding. However, no matter whether you lead a software development project (IT project cost management) or construction project (construction project cost management), you should consider project cost management as a process that consists of the three key steps.
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