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Planning Is An Unnatural Process

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Planning is an unnatural process; it is much more fun to do something. The nicest thing about not planning is that failure comes as a complete surprise, rather than being preceded by a period of worry and depression.

The management of time and cost are fundamentally linked. The time that a project requires will impact directly on the cost of undertaking the project. The monitoring of the project requires that both cost and time are measured, and because these are fundamentally linked, controls must be in place to monitor both. It is often the case that the project schedule will include budgets and these are derived from the estimating process.
5.1 Cost Estimating
5.1.1 Definition of cost estimating
Cost estimating is the process used to quantify the cost of services, materials and resources required to deliver a project.
An estimate should be robust and repeatable. The estimate should contain the source information used to calculate the estimate, and associated assumptions.
5.1.2 Purpose of a cost estimate
The purpose of a cost estimate is to determine the likely cost of the project. It may have a number of uses, for example to create budgets, to draft proposals, to tender for work, to get approval for research studies Depending on its purpose, the scope and detail of the cost estimate will vary.
5.1.3 Cost estimating and the project lifecycle
Cost estimating has four main stages as shown in the figure below Figure 20: Cost Estimating Process

5.1.4 Estimate Types

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