When creating a project's schedule, it is very important to consult resources if you are unsure of what to schedule and when. Therefore, I have listed two resources that should help with project management scheduling.
http://www.techrepublic.com/article/estimate-project-costs-after-you-have-estimated-effort-and-duration/6080089
This appears to be a blog post with a lot of pertinent information. This blog suggests that you evaluate effort first. once you have evaluated effort, you can then evaluate the other areas of scheduling. Other suggestions include the need to evaluate both internal and external labor costs as well as the non-labor costs such as travel expenses, materials, and training.
I will use this source to help me with budget and schedule because it provide areas that need to be scheduled and budgeted that I had never thought of before.
http://www.hyperthot.com/pm_cost.htm
This is a great resource because it provides suggestions to the project manager on how to to estimate costs. This can be very challenging even to the the experienced manager. This resource suggests that the manager implement project cost goals. However, most of the time the cost goals are strictly tied to the budget.
This resource also suggests that the manager should look at the history of the cost data and use that data to come up with the estimates. This resource also identifies things that may have been left out once the const estimation is complete. Those things are parts of scope, technical difficulty and changes.
I will use this resource to assist me with estimating costs for my project as well as evaluating how well my estimations will fair to comparable past projects.
http://www.techrepublic.com/article/estimate-project-costs-after-you-have-estimated-effort-and-duration/6080089
ReplyDeleteThis is a really good project management website for cost estimation and includes items that one would not normally include in the cost of a project. For example, team building is an essential skills and is necessary for the success of the project. Some companies will offer retreats or have team building activities for team members. Since this is not directly linked to the project, one would not think of including it in the project cost but as this website points out it should.
I also thought http://www.hyperthot.com/pm_cost.htm was a good website for cost estimation. The advice it gives is very pertinent to project management and new PMs might find value in it. The explanation of the different terminology was also particularly interesting for me as I don’t come from a business background and so many of these terms are easily lost on me. I liked the link to the Microsoft Project website. This is something I learned this week too. I had no idea what this software was until I came across some files I couldn’t open and I did some research. This is a good link to anyone who wants to use MS project.
Marcus,
ReplyDeleteThank you for these websites. I found the one about cost estimates helpful. This is an area that I am still struggling with. I likes that it discusses all the different types of cost estimates: " Top-Bottom, Bottom-Up, Design-to-Cost, Cost-as-variable…etc". This website is in time because it is very helpful for this week's assignment. In my post , I included a link to an online cost estimate system: http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/fall123/gordon123.html. feel free to check it out if you have time and let me know your thoughts.
Marcus,
ReplyDeleteI liked your comment on your first link where you stated that one must evaluate effort first then the other areas of scheduling, such as internal and external labor costs and non-labor costs (travel, materials, and training).
I checked out your link and I agree with your assessment. One thing that some Project Managers often forget is the cost of third party services, such as Web hosting or farming out some of the tasks such as original graphic art work and voice talent.
The following Blog link has some great information on how to locate and hire voice talent for anything you may need it for.
http://blogs.telestream.net/screenflow/2010/08/where-do-you-find-voice-talent/
Great post and I like the advice that the http://www.hyperthot.com/pm_cost.htm. site gives about estimating costs. I am interested in learning to use Microsoft Project and this was a great tool because it gave insight on how it can be used to create schedules and track the progress of a project.
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