I'm stuck in the C/W in terms of predicting the budgets for the case study project. I've tried to research on past projects but had no luck, and as part of the scope I need to include the budget for such project in order to be able to link all the sections of the C/W. Please could you help me in this, in terms on what to say about the budget of the project?
The coursework is asking for the predicated expenditure in areas such as: staff, equipment, consumables, other resources, contingenices and sources of income.
You have the dates for the different phases of the project in the case study itself, so you have guidelines about how long each phase should take. This means you can specify when you would need to start paying for staff with particular expertise and for how long, and when you would need equipment to be available. The timing of the expenditure should therefore be shown against each category.
So, looking at staff, your salary as project manager does not come out of the project budget (it will be paid from elsewhere), but any additional staff you hire will need to be identified (e.g. programmer, database designer, etc) and you can find out typical salaries by looking at advertisements for similar jobs. You might also want to think about whether you would hire external trainers to train the end-users in the new system, or use members of the project team to run the training.
With respect to equipment, this will be affected by any assumptions you have made about existing equipment: whether it needs to be replaced or upgraded, or is adequate for the purpose. Again, an idea about the cost involved can be gained from computer magazines or companies such as Dell. In this section you can also refer to the software that would be running on the computers.
Consumables relate to items that need to be replenished such as stationery; many of these will be incurred on a regular basis. Unfortunately "consumables" does not include chocolate cake...
Other resources could relate to items that are required, but are not covered above, possibly furniture for example.
The section on Contingencies refers to any funds you have set aside to deal with risks that might arise (e.g. to purchase replacement items). You would only pay this if the risk occurs, but you need to have fund set aside in preparation.
You might consider whether there is any funding available, e.g. from local government, from the EU, etc. It might be that there is no source of funding, in which case this should be specified.
From the calculations of the items in each category you should be able to work out a budget for the project as a whole.
Thanks you, this is a very helpful reply. So in terms of budget the project manager would sum the total costs of resources, risks etc... and once thats calculated then we can add extra money in terms for profit.
No need to add additional money for profit; your task is to calculate how much the project would cost, including an allowance for contingencies. In the same way that your salary as project manager comes out of another budget, any profit would be negotiated and arranged separately. You may want to put something in the assumptions about this.
I'm stuck in the C/W in terms of predicting the budgets for the case study project. I've tried to research on past projects but had no luck, and as part of the scope I need to include the budget for such project in order to be able to link all the sections of the C/W. Please could you help me in this, in terms on what to say about the budget of the project?
ReplyDeletethank you
The coursework is asking for the predicated expenditure in areas such as: staff, equipment, consumables, other resources, contingenices and sources of income.
DeleteYou have the dates for the different phases of the project in the case study itself, so you have guidelines about how long each phase should take. This means you can specify when you would need to start paying for staff with particular expertise and for how long, and when you would need equipment to be available. The timing of the expenditure should therefore be shown against each category.
So, looking at staff, your salary as project manager does not come out of the project budget (it will be paid from elsewhere), but any additional staff you hire will need to be identified (e.g. programmer, database designer, etc) and you can find out typical salaries by looking at advertisements for similar jobs. You might also want to think about whether you would hire external trainers to train the end-users in the new system, or use members of the project team to run the training.
With respect to equipment, this will be affected by any assumptions you have made about existing equipment: whether it needs to be replaced or upgraded, or is adequate for the purpose. Again, an idea about the cost involved can be gained from computer magazines or companies such as Dell. In this section you can also refer to the software that would be running on the computers.
Consumables relate to items that need to be replenished such as stationery; many of these will be incurred on a regular basis. Unfortunately "consumables" does not include chocolate cake...
Other resources could relate to items that are required, but are not covered above, possibly furniture for example.
The section on Contingencies refers to any funds you have set aside to deal with risks that might arise (e.g. to purchase replacement items). You would only pay this if the risk occurs, but you need to have fund set aside in preparation.
You might consider whether there is any funding available, e.g. from local government, from the EU, etc. It might be that there is no source of funding, in which case this should be specified.
From the calculations of the items in each category you should be able to work out a budget for the project as a whole.
Thanks you, this is a very helpful reply. So in terms of budget the project manager would sum the total costs of resources, risks etc... and once thats calculated then we can add extra money in terms for profit.
ReplyDeleteNo need to add additional money for profit; your task is to calculate how much the project would cost, including an allowance for contingencies. In the same way that your salary as project manager comes out of another budget, any profit would be negotiated and arranged separately. You may want to put something in the assumptions about this.
Delete