Building & Controlling Project Budgets
- Course:Building & Controlling Project Budgets
- Course ID:PROJBUDG Duration:2 days Where: Your Office (7+ Persons)
- Download Course Description (PDF)
Available as a private, customized course for your group at your offices or ours and in some cases as a WebLive(TM) class.
Course Outline
The Project Budget in Context
- Why we do projects: Business Value
- Impact of Portfolio Management
- Budget lifecycle
- Connecting project, program and business budgets
- How effective project management prevents cost overruns
- Setting project baselines
- The four functions of the budget
Initiation
- How to create useful estimates
- Estimating project cost
- Defining scope
- Analyzing risks
- Considering organizational impact
- Creating a high level budget
- Estimating Project Return
- Define Business Value
- Time frame
Planning
- Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
- Schedule
- Building on the WBS
- Value of a formal schedule
- Resource planning
- Risk
- Sources of budget risk
- Value and cost of proactive risk management
- Contingency cost
- Management Reserve cost
- Creating a Budget
- Elements of project cost
- Elements of post-project cost
- Assigning cost responsibility
- The project performance baseline
- Managing project constraints
Execution
- Monitoring project cost and progress
- Forecasting with Earned Value Management
- Controlling cost through project Change Control
- What you should never cut from your project
- Managing project baselines
Transition
- Delivery to the customer
- Optimizing long term project value
- Closing the budget
Course in a Nutshell
This course delivers practical, hands-on training in the development and management of project budgets. Budgeting is viewed both from the portfolio level, where effective project selection is critical, to the project level where detailed planning is a must. Attendees are shown how to generate useful preliminary estimates; use a project charter to establish a solid foundation for project budgeting; use Work Breakdown Structure, Risk Analysis and other techniques to drive budget accuracy; employ Earned Value Management as the tool of choice for accurate forecasting; control project cost through effective Change Control; and execute a Transition Plan in order to optimize long term project value.
Customize It!
- Are your projects consistently over budget? This course can be customized to help you improve control over the budgets of your most important projects.
- Are you a project manager who would like to go beyond the standard project management curriculum?This course presents a practical approach to the development of accurate and well managed budgets. Take home a whole new set of tools and techniques.
- Are you a manager, executive, or sales person whose work includes responsibility for project success? Take this course and learn what you can do to ensure that your budgets accurately reflect the work that must be done to reach the business objectives of your projects.
Aimed At
This course will be of immediate value to Business Owners, Project Managers, Portfolio Managers, Budget Analysts, Project Estimators, Functional Managers, PMO/COE Directors, Product Development Directors, Senior Managers, Acquisition/Procurement Officials, and Business Managers with project responsibility.
Prerequisites
This course assumes familiarity with basic project management concepts as well as some experience in the planning and management of project budgets. Effective Project Management (PROJMGT3, 3 days) or the equivalent is suggested to ensure a firm grounding in Project Management concepts.