Time and Cost Estimating Techniques
Estimating work times provides several benefits for the project manager. It gives an idea of the level of effort required to complete a project. This information then enables the project manager to produce a realistic plan based upon that effort. Estimating also helps the project manager anticipate the budget for the project.
There are many formal techniques available to estimate time and cost for activities. Please refer to the Project Management Reference
Section for more details on these techniques. Anyone reviewing these estimates should understand that they are approximations, not accuracies. Although the formal techniques are very specific, most of them have the following tasks in
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The Critical Path Method (CPM) is a technique used to predict project duration by analyzing which sequence of activities (which path) has the least amount of scheduling flexibility (the least amount of float). The critical path identifies the activities in the project plan which have the most potential to delay the project end date.
Gantt charts produced in this form are:
* graphical;
* easy to read;
* easy to update.
There are no widely accepted standards for Gantt charts. Automated tools are available which produce Gantt charts directly from activity networks or from a full definition of the tasks.
Automated tools have features which assist the planning function including: * display of original and latest time for task;
* display of person(s) allocated to tasks;
* integration with other planning techniques (i.e. networks and milestones).
Task Analysis Methods: Observational Techniques
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Overview
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Observational techniques are a general class of techniques whose objectives are to obtain data by directly observing the activity or behaviour under study. A wide range of observational techniques are commonly used and combined according to the particular requirements of a study. Observations may be direct observations, where the investigator is actually present during the task (visual observations, remote observations via closed-circuit television), or
In almost every business, project management is critically important. The critical path method (CPM) will provide a timeline for the project manager for when tasks should be completed. In addition, providing a deadline and the negative effects it will have on the following successors if not completed on time. These many task are interdepended. Therefore, the CPM provides the start and finishes times of the tasks, and identifies the few tasks on the critical path that the project manager should observe to determine which task needs the most attention. Already discovering and incorporating the details the task or assignments may require, CPM calculates all task times, which can be measured in hours, days, weeks, and months. For any unintended manually input errors, a warning message will be provided. Including an automatic successor generator, task numbering comment, and data validation, makes it easier on the project manager.
In field of project management, there are a plethora of mechanisms under perpetual reevaluation. One specific segmentation of project management under such scrutiny pertains to cost duration, which is the time and monetary costs of completing individual tasks within the project’s critical path (IBM Knowledge Center, 2016). The process of monitoring and evaluating the time and financial impacts of each task is referred to as cost duration analysis (IBM Knowledge Center, 2016). A chief concern of cost duration analysis is identifying tasks within the project’s critical path which can reduce project duration (PMI, 2013). A common approach to reducing a project’s duration is task “crashing” (PMI, p.181). According to The Project Management Institute (2013) crashing refers to the process of methodical determining the financial value of increasing a critical path task’s resources in order to decrease project duration (p.181).
The total duration of the construction project by adding the estimated task duration serially would give us 70 weeks. But some tasks within some activities can be done in parallel sequence or simultaneously, which would significantly reduce the construction project completion time using the critical path method (CPM). In this method the longest path is the critical path which runs through one of the route in the project network diagram from start to finish. This project network diagram is illustrated on the printed assignment page, we have 10 tasks listed from A to J. Below is an activity list of the tasks;
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c. Start to start: A contractor may elicit RFQs from subcontractors (activity B) while blueprints are still being fine tuned (activity A). This creates a lag between the start of activity A and the start of activity B.
Abstract:now a days business has been growing with lots of changes in technological environment. These have brought very effective changes to project management.project management includes implementing,controlling,goals and identifying tasks which are to be achieved.the concept of the project and project management involves project evaluation,project selection,project planning fundamentals.project cost control and scheduling of a project in critical methom(cpm) which are crucial to technology-intensive organizations which have been discussed.a project is a sequence structure that are connected with many activities and having one goal and that should be completed by the given time within budget and at required specifications.each and every projects have specified with starting date and ending date and they are completed in time.there are some operations that has only starting date but that doesnot have ending date.management is also involves different methods such as planning,executing,controlling and managing in order to achieve the given particular task.by these methods we cannot ensure the complete success but there is a chance to attain success.stakeholders are also plays an important role in this project management along with project team members.
As part of planning a project, tasks are assigned to project team members. Durations for task completion are also specified. Task duration estimation is necessary since it helps in cost and resource estimation. Iranmanesh and Mokhtari (2008), further affirmed the importance of project duration estimation by saying that, estimation of time and cost to complete work in a project and follow up them during implementation are major contributors to success or failure of a project, and hence very salient for the Project Manager. According to Hill, Thomas and Allen (2000), developing accurate estimates of overall project duration and its separate activities, is critical in
Based on the work breakdown structure, a Gantt chart as shown in Figure 6 is created to plan the project work to ensure that the project can be completed on time. The risk register was also referred to while constructing the Gantt chart to consider the risks that could delay the progress of the project. This was done so that the duration allocated to the tasks are realistic and frequent delays to the deadlines due to the risks can be minimised. Please note that to fit the Gantt chart into the document, each phase has a shift in time in which the timeline corresponds to the start and end dates of the respective phase.
Since the Gantt chart was first created, forms and components of the graph have been altered and interpreted in a distinctive way throughout the period. Although the incipience of computers has brought a progressive effect, the basis of the chart remains unchanged. Badiru (2009) defines the Gantt chart as an uncomplicated form of timeline to display amount of projected and actual work to be done in a given framework of time. As can be seen from Figure 1, the vertical axis presents all involved activities, while the timescale is designated along the horizontal axis over a calendar period. A distinctive feature of the chart is that it involves altogether separate individual tasks of a project, their duration and an arrangement of assigned activities. Moreover, as a project progresses, accomplished tasks can be seen as a result of indicated bars on the chart (Badiru, 2009). Interpreting the chart as a visually simple and clear project management tool Dobson (1999) points out that it permits to determine necessary labor force
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List the tasks that are on the critical path(s) of the project in part A1. If there is more than one critical path, list the tasks on each critical path as a separate list.
For this progression, there are numerous estimation systems set up, so your project ought to choose a fitting one. Once the action assessments are finished, basic way of the venture ought to be distinguished with a specific end goal to decide the aggregate project length. This is one of the key contributions for the project time administration.
Cost function refers to the mathematical relationship between cost of production and the various determinants of costs.