1-888-THE-TREE (1-888-843-8733)
PRODUCTIVITY THROUGH EDUCATION®
 

Project Budgeting and Estimating: Taking Control of Your Projects

 
Course: 923   Type: RealityPlus   Duration: 3 Days   PMI: 17
 
 

You Will Learn How To

  • Create an accurate budget for any level of work from individual project tasks to entire portfolios
  • Estimate tasks using activity-based costing, and aggregate to project budgets
  • Quantify risk to justify contingency funding and produce a defensible baseline
  • Manage the program budget, allocating funds to projects with the best rate of return
  • Align the organization's budget with the customer value proposition and strategic objectives
  • Leverage Earned Value Analysis to determine project status, forecasts and any necessary corrections

Course Benefits

Project managers are under constant pressure to deliver their projects under budget, yet projects in every industry often exceed their original budgets. This course provides the skills to estimate realistic budgets for completing planned project scope. You also learn how to leverage an approved baseline budget to support the organization's strategic objectives.

Who Should Attend

Anyone who wants to learn about budgeting, including project and program managers, department managers and team members. Project management experience at the level of Course 296, "Project Management: Skills for Success," or Course 340, "Project Management for Software Development," is strongly recommended.


Through an authentic case study-based simulation, you gain experience creating and managing a budget on a large-scale project. Role-playing, individual and team activities include:

  • Estimating individual task costs using various tools
  • Conducting peer reviews of individual estimates
  • Categorizing costs
  • Building the budget baseline
  • Adding contingency funding
  • Creating an earned value performance report
  • Forecasting and recommending next steps
  • Determining projects to fund
  • Identifying budget policy violations
  • Constructing a cash flow
  • Leveraging lessons learned

Related Courses

 
RealityPlus is a trademark of Learning Tree International. 		 

Upcoming Dates

Nov 3 - 5Toronto 
Jan 26 - 28Ottawa 
Mar 2 - 4Toronto 
Jul 27 - 29Ottawa 

US Dates

Oct 20 - 22Reston, VA
Dec 1 - 3New York 
Jan 5 - 7Rockville, MD
Feb 9 - 11Reston, VA

For complete schedule, please visit www.learningtree.ca
http://www.lrntree.ca/courses/923pf.htm
 
 
1-888-THE-TREE (1-888-843-8733)
PRODUCTIVITY THROUGH EDUCATION®
 

Project Budgeting and Estimating: Taking Control of Your Projects

 
Course: 923   Type: RealityPlus   Duration: 3 Days   PMI: 17
 
 
Course 923 Content
 

Introduction to Project Budgeting and Estimating

  • Preparing realistic budgets
  • Burning through a project budget
  • What's in it for me: living within your budget

Aligning Budgets from Small to Large

Structuring budgets and defining roles

  • Delegating individual budgeting activities
  • Connecting project, program and business budgets

Leveraging the four functions of the budget

  • Planning and justifying the project
  • Coordinating and communicating between stakeholders
  • Monitoring progress
  • Evaluating budget performance

Cost Estimating at the Individual Task Level

Activity-Based Costing (ABC)

  • Working with the Cost Breakdown Structure (CBS)
  • Relating the CBS to the budget based on the organization's standards

Categorizing costs

  • Determining activity-level direct, indirect and other costs
  • Aggregating tasks up to total individual costs

Project-Level Budgeting

Mapping to the project life cycle

  • Correlating budget detail to the life cycle stage
  • Producing deliverables that facilitate phase-gate decisions

Working with estimation tools

  • Adjusting an analogous estimate to suit your current project
  • Calculating the budget using parametric Cost Estimating Relationships (CERs)
  • Increasing confidence levels with three-point estimating

Incorporating project-level cost categories

  • Accounting for resource commitment levels
  • Collecting individual cost estimates
  • Adding in overhead and general and administrative costs

Forming the interim cost baseline

  • Determining the Total Project Cost
  • Managing the team's estimation process
  • Setting the standard of estimation
  • Conforming to granularity and accuracy requirements

Quantifying Risk and Finalizing the Baseline

Analyzing quantitative risk

  • Assessing probability
  • Establishing the monetary value of the impact

Allocating a contingency budget

  • Prioritizing risks using a Pareto analysis
  • Locating and controlling contingency

Declaring and revalidating project value

  • Valuating hard and soft savings
  • Stating the customer's value proposition for baseline approval

Allocating Program Funds

Deriving the content of the program budget

  • Generating the Rough Order of Magnitude (ROM) estimate
  • Applying PERT analysis to the entire project

Defending your project budgets

  • Calculating rate of return
  • Balancing project and opportunity costs

Creating a Master Budget for the Business Unit

Strategic positioning

  • Gauging your competition
  • Trading off costs and benefits for maximum return

Forecasting future values

  • Calculating potential results using decision trees
  • Making predictions using Net Present Value (NPV)

Managing cash flow

  • Constructing the balance sheet
  • Graphing your cash expenditures
  • Conforming to imposed budget constraints

Improving the organization's budgeting process

  • Controlling quality with SWOT and Lean Six Sigma
  • Applying Kaizen for continuous process improvement
  • Impacting the organization's bottom line

Measuring Budget Performance with EVA

  • Performing budget-based Earned Value Analysis (EVA)
  • Correcting for variance from baseline
  • Forecasting budget performance based on actuals
  • Determining when to rebaseline
http://www.lrntree.ca/courses/923pf.htm
 
 
1-888-THE-TREE (1-888-843-8733)
PRODUCTIVITY THROUGH EDUCATION®
 

Project Budgeting and Estimating: Taking Control of Your Projects Tuition

 
Course: 923   Type: RealityPlus   Duration: 3 Days   PMI: 17
 
 
Course Tuition
$ 2,595 Standard Tuition
Tuition with a Savings Plan
$ 1,665Flex-Training Pass
$ 1,800Multi-Course Passport
$ 2,950Voucher 5-Pack
$ 2,335Alumni Gold Discount
$ 2,195Government Discount
 

Your Course Tuition Entitles You To...

  • Class participation
  • Team workshops
  • Use of in-class hands-on equipment
  • Comprehensive course materials
  • Morning and afternoon refreshments
  • Course Completion Certificate awarding Continuing Education Units
  • FREE participation in Professional Certification
  
 

Tuition Savings Plans

Multi-Course
Training Passport
  • As little as $1,800 per course
  • Savings as much as 45%
  • 4 courses in 12 months
  • Only $7,195
Flex-Training Pass
  • As little as $1,665 per course
  • Up to 2 years to attend 3 courses
  • Savings as much as 50%
  • Only $4,995 *
Training Vouchers
  • Save as much as $650 per course
  • Fully transferable
  • As low as $2,895 per course
Alumni Gold Discount Attend your first course and you'll receive a personalized Alumni Gold Discount card, entitling you to save as much as $350 on each course you take within the following 12 months. Take just one course each year and you'll be entitled to ongoing discounts...year after year!
Exact savings may vary depending on courses selected.
*Offer expires 8/31/2010!

Your Guarantee of Satisfaction

Unless you feel 100% satisfied that Learning Tree delivered even more than you expected, there is no fee for your course attendance. Our Guarantee of Quality lets you experience the value of the course—and then pay only if you feel the course was well worth the tuition.

Enrolling is Easy and Flexible!

Enrol by phone or online. If your plans change, just let us know and, without a fee, you can transfer to another course or cancel your enrolment. Pay after you've taken the course, and then only if you are 100% satisfied.
http://www.lrntree.ca/courses/923pf.htm