1. 4. Project Cost Management
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Cost is one of 3 Triple constraints of the project. Managing costs of the project is
very crucial and hardest part of the project. It spans across all phases of the project
right from conception to closure of the project.
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Cost Management is not just controlling “Costs”; it involves definitive planning and
preparing budgets. Collecting cost associated data. Comparing the data to prepared
budgets and taking appropriate actions when needed.
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The process involved in estimating, budgeting, and controlling cost so that the
project can be completed within approved budget.
Value analysis (value engineering)
 Looking at less costly way to do the same work within the same scope
Following table lists all 3 Processes in this Knowledge Area, spread across '2 out of 5
Process Groups'
-
5 Process
Groups
Initiation
Planning
Executi
on
Monitoring and
control
Closing
4.1. Cost Estimating
Processes
4.3. Cost Control
4.2. Cost Budgeting
4.1 Estimate Cost
- The process of developing approximation of the monetary resources needed to complete
project activities
 Cost trade-offs & risk must be considered

Cost estimates should be refined
Inputs
-
-
Scope baseline
Project schedule
Human resource plan
Risk register
Enterprise
environmental
factors
Organizational
process assets
Tools
-
Expert judgment
Analogous estimating
Parametric estimating
Bottom-up estimating
Three-point estimates
Reserve analysis
Cost of quality
Project management
estimating software
Vendor bid analysis
Outputs
- Activity cost estimates
- Basis of estimates
- Project document updates
By: Mohamed Salah ElDien Mohamed Aly, MSc, PMP®, DIT, MCAD

2. There are 3 different types of estimation techniques listed over here under Tools section of Cost
Estimation.
- Analogous Estimation techniques
- Bottom-up approach technique
- Parametric approach technique
Analogous estimation
-It is mainly based on Expert Judgment or based on similar previous Projects. This approach is
very useful in early stages of the project where WBS and work packets are completely defined.
The expert judgment success factor depends on similarity of previous projects too. The main
disadvantage is that it is good for ball-park figures but not for precise project cost.
Parametric Estimation
- It considers different project characteristics to calculate total costs of the project. For example,
in the Telephone wire digging project, if we know cost per meter we can estimate it to whole
project. For a house construction, if we know cost to construct per square feet, we can estimate
total house project. For complex projects there will be multi dimensional parameters involved.
When historic information is available these parametric estimation will be more accurate.
Bottom-up approach
- It is elaborative estimation technique. We start estimating from the bottom most part of WBS
hierarchy which is work package. Work packages are divided into activities. Summing up work
packages to modules or groups, summing up different modules to stages, summing up different
stages to project is the bottom-up approach method. The people who will actually do this work
should create the estimates.
Types of Cost;
-
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Variable Costs
 Change with the amount of production/work
 e.g. material, supplies, wages
Fixed Costs
 Do not change as production change

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Direct Costs
 Directly attributable to the work of project

-
e.g. set-up, rental
e.g. team travel, recognition, team wages
Indirect Costs
 overhead or cost incurred for benefit of more than one project

e.g. taxes, fringe benefit, janitorial services
By: Mohamed Salah ElDien Mohamed Aly, MSc, PMP®, DIT, MCAD

3. -
It is very important to understand “Cost Variability” that focuses on changing of
cost over time as well as over volume;

Inflation; cost of some items increase over time.

Deflation; cost of technology items decrease over time.
Direct Costs vs. Indirect Costs
-
when talking about “a new project team member”, the direct cost will be his salary
while the indirect costs may be the insurance premiums given to him, the paid pill
for his telephone calls, computer internet access cost, his disk or disk space that have
been given to him.
-
When talking about “a specific material needed”, the direct cost will be its price
while the indirect cost will be the transportation cost paid to receive such material as
well as the storing cost...etc.
Fixed Costs vs. Variable Costs
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A fixed cost is like the cost of a unit has a certain nature which maybe a resource
such as a specific material or equipment used for the project. If you need to buy a
piece of equipment to allow the project to continue, that is simply a fixed cost
regardless it will be used for once or hundreds of times.
-
Variable costs are directly related to the level of work with each and every element
of the WBS. It is like the cost of water needed to drink or Gasoline needed to some
machinery.
Quality/Accuracy of Cost Estimation
By: Mohamed Salah ElDien Mohamed Aly, MSc, PMP®, DIT, MCAD

4. 4.2 Determine Budget
- Process of aggregating the estimated cost of individual activities or work packages to
establish an authorized cost baseline.
Inputs
- Activity cost estimates
- Basis of estimates
- Scope baselines
- Project schedule
- Resource calendars
- Contracts
- Organizational process
assets
Tools
-
Cost aggregation
Reserve analysis
Expert judgment
Historical relationship
Funding limit
reconciliation
Outputs
-
Cost performance
baseline
Project funding
requirements
Project document
updates
- The main goal of this process is to develop Cost Baseline. At the starting point of this Process,
you should have finished Project Cost Estimation and have a complete list of estimates of
individual
activities.
Cost Aggregation;
-
We use Cost Aggregation tools to sum up those low level activity costs to Work package to
higher levels of WBS hierarchy.
-
Reserves & risk management are important while estimating!

Contingency reserves/Cost Baseline (the cost impacts of the remaining risk)

Management reserves/Cost Budget (extra fund to cover surprising risks or
changes to the project).
The cost baseline
-
It is a reference point for the project to compare time to time. You will monitor and control
project costs comparing to the baseline and report any variations. Costs at work package
level are tied to financial systems using Chart of Accounts. Chart of accounts show cost
allocation categories.
Project manager is allowed to allocate extra resources (time or money) as a buffer for known
unknowns; we call it as Contingency Reserve.
Determines Budget: Other considerations
By: Mohamed Salah ElDien Mohamed Aly, MSc, PMP®, DIT, MCAD

5. - High level parametric estimate as a rule of thumb
 E.g. testing cost 50% of development cost
- Funding limit reconciliation = checking cash flow
 When the money will be available?
- Reconciliation needed before proposed cost baseline and cost budget become final
 Such reconciliation is part of integration management
4.3 Control Cost
- The process of monitoring the status of the project to update the project budget and
managing changes to the cost baseline.
Inputs
- Project management
plan
- Project funding
requirement
- Work performance
information
- Organizational process
assets
Tools
-
Earned value
management
Forecasting
To-complete
performance index
Performance reviews
Variance analysis
Project management
software
Outputs
-
Work performance
measurement
Budget forecast
Organizational process
updates
Change requests
Project management plan
updates
Project document updates
Cost control:
Once you estimate Project costs as well as cost baseline and prepare a Budget, you will
be on cruise mode to control the costs. That doesn’t mean it is easy thereafter. No not at
all. You have to monitor your cost so closely. Your work performance information is key
input for this process. You should have clear set templates to report the work progress.
Otherwise all unwanted junk data might ruin the soup.
How to control cost?
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Follow the cost management plan
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Look at any organizational process asset that are available
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Manage change

Recording all appropriate change
By: Mohamed Salah ElDien Mohamed Aly, MSc, PMP®, DIT, MCAD

6. 

Ensuring requested changes are agreed upon

-
Preventing incorrect change
Managing the actual changes when and as they occur
Measure and measure and measure (monitoring)
Project performance review is another Tools & Techniques provided. You will review
project progress with your baseline plans and will provide what you’ve earned against
what you have planned. This is known as Earned Value Analysis and helps you to track
your day to day progress. 3 possible scenarios are: you are progressing ahead of plan that
means you are getting more than what you have planned, or progress is as per the plan or
not getting enough worth for your investment. Based on these 3 scenarios you can take
according corrective actions. Corrective actions are what you are supposed to do in this
process.
You can use Project Management software of your choice to help you in this regard. MS
Project is popular one or even you can simply use well planned out Excel sheets to track
those costs.
First you will find variances and report those using Variance analysis. The terms you use
over here are Cost Variance (CV) and Schedule Variance (SV). From that point you
might required to forecast rest of the project. This involves estimating rest of the work.
You use terms like Estimation to Completion (ETC) and Estimate at Complete (EAC).
Those names are telling what you have to Estimate.
Other terms you use here are Cost Performance Index (CPI) and SPI (Schedule
Performance Index)
By: Mohamed Salah ElDien Mohamed Aly, MSc, PMP®, DIT, MCAD

7. Earned Value Technique
Ex;
Cont. Earned Value Technique
By: Mohamed Salah ElDien Mohamed Aly, MSc, PMP®, DIT, MCAD

8. Earned Value Management
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Method to measure project performance against scope, schedule and cost baseline
(performance measurement baseline).
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Interpretation of basic EVM performance measures

Cost Performance Index (CPI)

Schedule Performance Index (SPI)
Exercise;
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You have a project to build a box. The box is six sided. Each side is to take one day to
build and is budgeted for $1000 per side. The sides are planned to be completed one
after the other. Today is the end of day three.
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Using the following project status chart, calculate PV, EV, AC, BAC, CV, CPI, SV,
SPI, EAC, ETC, VAC.
-
Describe your interpretation based on the calculation!
By: Mohamed Salah ElDien Mohamed Aly, MSc, PMP®, DIT, MCAD

9. Solution;
Hence, based on the result table;
• Over budget, getting 0.88 dollar for every spent dollar,
• Ahead schedule, progressing 101% of the rate planned,
• Probably will spend $6818 at the end (estimation),
• need $3368 to complete,
• Over budget at the end for about $818 (estimation)
Performance Metrics;
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Budget At Completion (BAC) “Total cost of the project.”
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Budgeted Cost for Work Scheduled (BCWS) / Planned Value (PV)


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The amount expressed in Pounds (or hours) of work to be performed as
per the schedule plan.
PV = BAC * % of planned work.
Budgeted Cost for Work Performed (BCWP) / Earned Value (EV)


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The amount expressed in Pounds (or hours) on the actual worked
performed.
EV = BAC * % of Actual work
Actual Cost of Work Performed (ACWP) / Actual Cost (AC)
By: Mohamed Salah ElDien Mohamed Aly, MSc, PMP®, DIT, MCAD

10. Cost Forecasting:
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Estimate At Completion (EAC)
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The expected TOTAL cost required to finish complete work.
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EAC = BAC / CPI
= AC + (BAC - EV) (at typical case)
= AC + ((BAC - EV) / CPI) (The same performance will remain)
= AC + (BAC - EV) / (CPI* SPI) (The same performance will remain +
Extra loss due to delay in time)
* Here “typical” means it is assumed that similar variances will not occur in the future.
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Estimate to complete (ETC)
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The expected cost required to finish all the Remaining work.
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ETC
= EAC - AC
= (BAC - EV) / CPI
Variances:

Cost Variances (CV)
Determine “How much under or over budget?”
CV = EV-AC
NEGATIVE is over budget, POSITIVE is under budget.

Schedule Variances (SV)
Determine “How much ahead or behind schedule?”.
SV = EV-PV
NEGATIVE is behind schedule, POSITIVE is ahead of schedule.

Variance At Completion (VAC)
Variance of “TOTAL” cost of the work and expected cost.
VAC = BAC - EAC
By: Mohamed Salah ElDien Mohamed Aly, MSc, PMP®, DIT, MCAD

11. Performance Indices:

Cost Performance Index
CPI = EV / AC
“Over (< 1) or under (> 1) budget”.

Schedule Performance Index
SPI = EV / PV
“Ahead (> 1) or behind (< 1) schedule”.
To-Complete Performance Index (TCPI)
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Helps the team determine the efficiency that must be achieved on the remaining
work for a project to meet a specified endpoint, such as BAC or the team’s revised
EAC.
TCPI = Remaining Work (BAC – EV) / Funds Remaining (EAC - AC)
By: Mohamed Salah ElDien Mohamed Aly, MSc, PMP®, DIT, MCAD

12. Problem: A project has a budget of £10M and schedule for 10 months. It is assumed that
the total budget will be spent equally each month until the 10th month is reached. After 2
months the project manager finds that only 5% of the work is finished and a total of £1M
spent.
Solution:
PV = £2M
EV = £10M * 0.05 = £0.5M
AV = £1M
CV = EV-AC = 0.5-1 = -0.5M
CV% = 100 * (CV/EV) = 100*(-0.5/0.5) = -100% overrun
SV = EV-PV = 0.5-2 = -1.5 months
SV% = 100 * (SV/PV) = 100*(-1.5/2) = -75% behind
CPI = EV/AC = 0.5/1 = 0.5
SPI = EV/PV = 0.5/2 = 0.25
EAC = BAC/CPI = 10/0.5 = £20M
ETC = (BAC-EV) / CPI = (10-0.5)/0.5 = £19M
Time to compete = (10-0.5)/0.25 = 38 Months
This project will take TOTAL £20M (19+1) and 40 (38+2) Months to complete.
By: Mohamed Salah ElDien Mohamed Aly, MSc, PMP®, DIT, MCAD

13. Hints to remember;
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EV comes in most of formulas specially regarding “Variance” & “Index”
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If it’s variance, the formula is EV – something.
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If it’s index, EV / something.
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If it relates to cost, use Actual Cost.
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If it relates to schedule, use PV.
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Negative numbers are bad, positive is good.
By: Mohamed Salah ElDien Mohamed Aly, MSc, PMP®, DIT, MCAD