Project Scheduling & Cost Planning Skills

Time and Money are two of the most precious commodities in organisational life and are often two of the key success criteria for projects. Both are often subject to strict and/or tight limits.

Neither of them do you get back once they’re gone. This Coventry Academy training explores how to manage both, balancing them with other important factors such as quality, resources and risk.

It examines estimating techniques relevant to different stages of the project’s life, how to derive the overall cost and timescale of the project and how to match that with the required limitations.

You will learn how to deal with the uncertainty of estimates, both proactively and reactively, through risk and issue management techniques respectively.

What Are The Goals?

This Coventry Academy training course enables attendees to:

• Estimate Timescales, Costs and Resources for Project Work

• Determine the Overall Project Schedule and Cost Plan

• Apply Risk Management Techniques

• Monitor and Analyse Project Timescale and Cost Performance

• Derive Corrective Actions to Maintain the Integrity of Project Limits

Who Is This Training Course For?

This Coventry Academy training course is suitable to a wide range of professionals, but will greatly benefit:

• Existing Project Managers

• New Project Managers

• Project Management Team Members

• Project Team Members

• Project Estimators

• Project Finance Professionals

Course Outline

Day One: Project Estimating Basics

• Basic project management definitions

• Triple constraints – Time, Cost, Scope

• Project selection methods

• Defining project scope

• Cost & schedule estimation, Cost budgeting & control

• Project schedule management using the Critical Path Method

Day Two: Developing Project Budget & Schedule Control

• Resource requirements

• Direct & indirect project costs

• Planning and scheduling limited resources

• Options for accelerating the schedule

• Crashing the schedule - How?

Day Three: Managing the Risk

• Risk identification, analysis & management

• Contingency reserve

• PERT, probability and standard deviation formulae

• Network activity risk profiles

• Application: Estimating project duration

• Project risk strategies

Day Four: Measuring Project Performance

• Critical chain analysis and use of buffers

• Comparison of unbalanced with balanced schedules

• Measuring planned progress on schedule

• Risk distribution in contracting

• Actual progress and work conditions

• Managing variable conditions

Day Five: Managing and Recovering Project Estimates

• Schedule variances & cost variances

• Progress control charts -trend analysis

• Schedule and cost variance forecasting

• Schedule and cost recovery analysis

• Schedule and cost recovery plan

• Project recovery baselines and controls

The Certificate

• Coventry Academy Certificate of Attendance will be provided to delegates who attend and complete the course