Cost Estimation and Budgeting Chapter 8 Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

Common Sources of Project Cost Labor Materials Subcontractors Equipment & facilities Travel Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

Types of Costs Direct Vs. Indirect Recurring Vs. Nonrecurring Fixed Vs. Variable Normal Vs. Expedited Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

Cost Classifications Direct Indirect Fixed Recurring Variable Normal Expedited Costs Non-recurring Direct Labor X Building Lease Expedite Material Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

Cost Estimation Ballpark (order of magnitude) ±30% Comparative ±15% Feasibility ±10% Definitive ±5% Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

Learning Curves Each doubling of output results in a reduction in time to perform the last iteration. Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

Problems with Cost Estimation Low initial estimates Unexpected technical difficulties Lack of definition Specification changes External factors Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

Creating a Project Budget The budget is a plan that identifies the resources, goals and schedule that allows a firm to achieve those goals Project Plan WBS Scheduling Budgeting Top-down Bottom-up Activity-based costing (ABC) Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

Top-Down Budgeting Based on collecting the judgments and experiences of top and middle managers and available past data concerning similar activities. These managers estimate overall project cost as well as the costs of the magor subprojects. These costs estimates are then given to lower-level, who expected to continue to the breakdown into budget estimates for specific tasks. This process continues to the lowest level. Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

Bottom-Up budgeting Elemental tasks, their schedules, and their individual budgets are constructed following WBS. The people doing the work are consulted regarding time and budget. Estimates are made in terms of resources. The resulting task budgets are aggregated to give the total direct costs The PM adds indirect costs as general and admin. Costs It is more accurate than top-down Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

Activity-Based Costing Projects use activities & activities use resources Assign costs to activities that use resources Identify cost drivers associated with this activity Compute a cost rate per cost driver unit or transaction Multiply the cost driver rate times the volume of cost driver units used by the project Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

Work Element costing Suppose a work element is estimated to require 25 hours of labor. The labor is paid 17.5$/hr Overhead changes to the project are 84% of direct labor changes. The cost will be = 25 hr X 17.5 X 1.84 = 805$ A typical allowance for personal time is 12% of total work time. The cost will be = 1.12 X 25 hr X 17.5 X 1.84 = 901.6$ PM will add the indirect cost for G&A costs. Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

Contingencies are needed because Budget Contingencies The allocation of extra funds to cover uncertainties and improve the chance of finishing on time. Contingencies are needed because Project scope may change Murphy’s Law is present Cost estimation must anticipate interaction costs Normal conditions are rarely encountered Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall