Project Cost Research Paper Assignment
Your project is now at a time where the costs need to be determined so that you can create your budget. In order to estimate costs, you must use one of the cost estimating tools and techniques listed in
Figure 5-23 in Process Groups: A Practice Guide and detailed in Section 10 of that same book. Because you are not sure which tools and techniques to use, select one of the tools and techniques provided and research it.
Instructions
Write a paper about why the method would be the best option for your project. In order to complete this assignment, follow the following instructions.
1. Pick a cost/budget concept from Process Groups: A Practice Guide.
2. Provide an explanation of the estimating tool or technique you decided to use so the reader understands the approach.
3. Conduct research using our textbook, two scholarly articles, and two popular sources. In other words, you need at least five sources).
4. Explain what your research indicates regarding the estimating technique you selected to choose.
a. Are there potential issues that could happen as it relates to the type of project you selected?
b. Is the technique you selected used by other similar organizations or industry participants?
c. You determine which criteria is most important to understand about the technique you selected.
5. Once your paper is complete, upload it for review and grading.
Paper Requirements
Your paper should be three to five pages long (at least three pages but not more than five).
Use APA format for the paper and your references. If you are not familiar with APA, please utilize the APA Writing CenterLinks to an external site..
Make sure your paper utilizes in-text references, in addition to references at the end, because this will help explain the source of any assertions or arguments you make.
Figure 5.23
Estimate Costs is the process of developing an approximation of the cost of resources needed to complete project work. The key benefit of this process is that it determines the monetary resources required for the project.
This process is performed periodically throughout the project as needed. The inputs, tools and techniques, and outputs are shown in
Figure 5-23.
Figure 5-24 presents the data flow diagram for this process.
Figure 5-23: Estimate Costs: Inputs, Tools & Techniques, and Outputs
Larger View
Note: This figure provides the inputs, tools and techniques, and outputs that may be used for this process. Descriptions for inputs and outputs appear in Section 9. Descriptions for tools and techniques appear in Section 10.
Figure 10-
Cost aggregation.
Cost estimates are aggregated by work packages in accordance with the work breakdown structure (WBS). The work package cost estimates are then aggregated for the higher component levels of the WBS (such as control accounts) and, ultimately, for the entire project.
Cost-benefit analysis.
A financial analysis tool used to determine the benefits provided by a project against its costs. A cost-benefit analysis is used to estimate the strengths and weaknesses of alternatives in order to determine the best alternative in terms of benefits provided. A cost-benefit analysis will help the project manager determine if project activities are cost effective. A cost-benefit analysis compares the cost of an activity to the expected benefit.
Cost of quality. The cost of quality (COQ) associated with a project consists of one or more of the following costs (
Figure 10-5 lists examples for each cost group):
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Prevention costs. Costs related to the prevention of poor quality in products, deliverables, or services of the specific project.
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Appraisal costs. Costs related to evaluating, measuring, auditing, and testing products, deliverables, or services of a specific project.
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Failure costs (internal/external). Costs related to nonconformance of products, deliverables, or services based on the needs or expectations of the stakeholders.
The optimal COQ is one that reflects the appropriate balance for investing in the cost of prevention and appraisal to avoid failure costs. Models show that there is an optimal quality cost for projects, where investing in additional prevention/appraisal costs is neither beneficial nor cost effective.
Figure 10-5: Cost of Quality
Larger View
