Project Estimating and Scheduling

Complete Title: Project Estimating and Scheduling - Creating Realistic Schedules and Budgets

Establishing realistic estimates and schedules for projects that support business objectives and meet client expectations is one of the most challenging aspects of project planning. Delivering those results within the agreedupon time, cost and quality constraints is also very challenging. 

Attempting to meet impossible deadlines with limited budgets leads to unplanned product shortfalls, which cause long-term support and utilization problems. We have all anguished about this recurring problem, but without having the skills or knowledge to take action, we are unable to break the cycle! 

The goal of this course is to equip you with the necessary knowledge, skills and techniques so that you can establish realistic schedules and budgets for projects that support business objectives and meet client expectations. 

Who Should Attend: Those who can benefit from this course include project managers, as well as all project team members who participate in creating, implementing and/or controlling project schedules.

Performance Focus 

• Developing realistic schedules and cost estimates 
• Leveraging the most appropriate tools and techniques for establishing these realistic schedules and cost estimates
• Using the baseline and additional tools and techniques to effectively control project performance 

Pre-requisites: Basic project management training or equivalent experience

Course Level: Intermediate/Advanced 

What You Will Learn 

You’ll learn how to:

• Use the work breakdown structure (WBS) as the basis for effective resourcing, estimating, and scheduling on projects
• Estimate durations using a variety of techniques
• Develop reliable preliminary schedules using the critical path method
• Implement useful adjustments to preliminary schedules
• Establish realistic schedule and cost baselines, with appropriate risk management plans
• Explain the value of and interpret reports using Earned Value Management (EVM) to manage time and cost performance on projects  

Course Overview 

Getting Started

• Introductions 
• Course Structure 
• Course goals and objective 

Foundation Concepts

• Project management basic concepts
• Project Estimating and Scheduling (PES) 
• Key Driver:  the competing project demands    
• PES process overview
• PES success factors  

Project Definition and the Work Breakdown Structure 

• Project definition overview
• Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) concepts 
• Decomposition: key technique for developing the WBS 

Resource Planning 

• Resource planning overview 
• Identifying resource requirements 
• Identifying and filling resource gaps 
• Applying resource planning tools 

Duration Estimating 

• Estimating overview
• Estimating perspectives 
• Estimating techniques
• Duration estimating best practices 

Project Scheduling 

• Project scheduling overview
• Dependencies & the project network diagram
• Critical Path Method (CPM)
• Optimizing the project schedule 

Budget, Risk and Contingency Planning

• Overview of budget, risk and contingency planning
• Determining budget 
• Planning risk management 
• Planning contingency reserves 

Project Baseline and Control

• Baseline concepts 
• Negotiating and the project baseline
• Earned Value Management (EVM)
• Project variances and corrective actions
• Facilitating control through reporting