Performance Management

PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Resources and Budget Planning (E)

What is the project? How to select and justify the project? How to plan and execute the project?

Posted: Sep 2010

Project Resource Planning

Resources planning is a detailed planning of required materials, equipment, services … There are three different types of resource requirements planning used for developing a project schedule. Those three types are unlimited resource scheduling, time-limited resource scheduling, and resource-limited resource scheduling.

• Unlimited resource scheduling. 
  Unlimited resource scheduling assumes that resources are available whenever and wherever the resource they are needed. Unlimited resource scheduling gives the project its earliest completion date and is the most optimistic.
   

• Time-limited resource scheduling.
  In time-limited resource scheduling, resources that are available are identified as they are, while the time is limited. If the available resources need to finish the task on time, they need to work overtime, if the task deployment is behind schedule.
   

• Resource-limited resource scheduling
  In resource-limited resource scheduling, the resources may be limited, so the project extra time could be needed, since employment of additional resources is not possible.

 
The Budget Planning

Once the resources are identified and the project’s timeline is defined, it is time to assign costs and resources to each of the tasks. Two types of budgets can be developed for the same project. The first is a preliminary cost estimate. The second type of budget is a final cost estimate.

Preliminary cost estimate

This type of budget is typically done when there is little time available to provide a more complete picture of budget requirement. The purpose of preliminary cost estimate is roughly estimation of project financial feasibility.

Final cost estimate

This type of budget is very detailed, and is typically used to support project planning and implementation. The project’s actual costs should be typically between 5 and 10 percent of variation from budget.

Both type of budget is used, both have key components:

• Labor

• Materials 

• Machines  

• Supplier or consultant costs 

Another aspect of planning is the contingency planning. These are unexpected events that can happen during a project. An example is a machine breakage, delayed delivery of specific material. All these are considered project risks that may need to be allowed for.

Continue on Project Management:
 
1. Project Management Overview 
2. 9 Areas of Project Management 
3. Project Lifecycle – 5 Stages of Project  
4. How to Determinine a Value of the Project? 
    4.1. Simple Payback 
    4.2. Average Return on Investment (ROI) 
    4.3. Net Present Value (NPV) 
    4.4. Internal Rate of Return (IRR) 
    4.5. Cost/benefit analysis 
    4.6. Time value of money 
    4.7. Present value of future payments 
    4.8. Justification of Addopted project 
5. Project Planning – Project Charter 
6. Work Cascading Structure (WBS) 
7. Project Scheduling ( Arrow-on-Arrow and Gantt Chart ) 
8. Project Scheduling  ( CPM and PERT ) 
9. The Responisbility Matrix 
10. Resources and Budget Planning 
11. Clasification of Projects