Scheduling and Cost Control

Section One: Essential Background

• Overview of the project management lifecycle
• The triple constraint
• Planning tools
• Project requirements—a review

Section Two: The Work Breakdown Structure--a Review

• Resource Allocation and Estimating
• Using estimates for scheduling and cost control
• The basic rules for estimating
• Levels of estimating and estimate types
• Top-down vs. bottom-up
• Order of magnitude
• Budget
• Definitive
• Four estimating methodologies

Section Three: Identifying Controllable Costs and Building the Project Resource Pool

• Resource
• Material
• Direct
• Indirect
• Planning for risk with contingency
• Using resources to build estimates
• The responsibility matrix
• Time-controlled estimates
• Resource-limited estimates

Section Four: Scheduling and The Baseline

• Network scheduling
• Validating schedules
• Arrow diagrams and precedence diagrams
• Basic scheduling and network calculations
• Advanced precedence relationships and the critical path
• Alternative constraints
• Gantt and milestone charts
• Establishing baselines
• Understanding types of baselines
• Time-phased distribution of costs
• Cumulative cost curves

Section Five: Managing Change Within the Project, Evaluation, and Forecasting

• The process of control
• Identifying sources of change
• Screening change
• Updating the project plan
• Communicating change
• Causes of variances
• Establishing the “data date” for evaluation
• Controlling costs and schedule late in the project
• Components of the project audit
• Considerations in establishing a monitoring system
• Earned value management
• Advanced earned value management forecasting tools