Communications Driven and Group Decision Support System
Globalization has not only expanded the product markets. It has also made organizations geographically more dispersed. Therefore, the way the business is done and decisions are made has also changed significantly. Collaborative decision-making has become more valuable than ever. This is why there is an increased emphasis on developing and implementing communications-driven group decision support […]
Six Sigma – Introduction to Analyze Phase
The Six Sigma philosophy believes in statistical facts. There is no room for error and therefore there is no room for guessing or judgement. Therefore the few inputs that were guessed for being the critical ones in the earlier stages of define and measure now need to be confirmed with statistical analysis. The purpose of […]
BPI – Introduction to Process Measurement
Business Process Improvement project happen to be the most effective tool to bring in effective process and operating efficiencies in any field of business operations. Organizations use BPI programs to overhaul the existing processes, remove redundancies and to adapt to the changing demands and conditions of the Customers. As the business environment keeps changing and […]
Business Process Reengineering and Best Practices
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) evolved almost at the same time i.e. 1st half of 1990. Both relates to radical redesign of an organization at a relatively short period. Both are having the primary intend to optimize workflow and improve productivity. But, the chicken and egg question remained, whether an organization […]
Impact of Business Process Re-Engineering and Improvements
In the new world that is fast changing with rapid advances made in science and technology and shrinking borders, the academicians have had to discard the old theories of Management and rewrite the rules all over again. Bet it the marketing principles, human resource management or business processes, every topic needs to be redefined and […]
The following are the costs associated with the projects.
Any costs that are directly attributable to the work on the project. These can include the salaries paid to the resources, the billing rate of the resources and costs of the software and hardware that are used for building the website
These costs are spread out against many projects and cannot be linked to one project alone. These costs include those incurred in shared services like cost of office space, taxes paid by the organization and other services like secretarial and janitorial staff
Costs that change in proportion to the amount of time and material that are spent on produced in the project.
Costs that do not change with the timeline or progress of the project.
A cost be either Fixed or Variable; Direct or Indirect
The overhead costs for this project are the office setup and shared services. While the costs incurred in setting up the office space can be general overhead cost as it is a one-time cost and is borne by all the projects in the organization.
The project overhead costs are the costs incurred in the shared services such as secretarial staff and other services provide to the project and can be directly billable as such.
A time phased budget would include the costs incurred at each interval or milestone of the project. The milestones for this project would be requirements, design, coding, testing and implementation. The budget for the same would be the costs at each stage of the project.
The Budget at Completion or BAC should have all the components of the costs included like direct and indirect costs, fixed and variable costs etc along with the cost at each phase or milestone of the project.
The cost variance should be measured using Earned Value technique and this tool allows the manager to assess the completion of the project at each milestone according to the cost incurred and the value accrued till then. Variance between these two measures gives an accurate estimate of the health of the project.
The cumulative costs of the project are the ones that are incurred up to a specific phase or milestone of the project. It can be measured by using a Cost Performance Index or CPI which measures the ratio of the Earned value with regards to the Actual cost incurred on the project. As outlined above, all the costs that accumulate up to a particular phase can be called the cumulative costs of the project.
The cost management plan should include the plan for controlling the costs of the project. There should be a measurement of the costs involved and their variances tracked, if any. Any variance to the budget must be controlled by the controlling the impact of the cost changes.
Further, cost control can be done in the area of overhead costs and general and administrative expenses.
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