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Project management templates… and more

Monthly Archives: January 2014

project solution

Project Solutions

The number of project solutions for any particular problem will vary. It all depends on how much revenue you are willing to spend to solve your problem and the amount of resources you have available to you. Another factor in this equation is how serious is the problem and even if it is economically feasible to mitigate the problem or just choose another path.

To know what type of project solutions to utilize, you must first define your problem. If you have a communication problem, then the use of collaboration technology might be the perfect fit. This will help your staff to send messages and use virtual conferences to make sure the message being received is the same one that is being sent. This is a common problem in corporations. The content of the message changes as it is passed down the chain of command.

Another common project solutions utilized in today’s business world is the project management office program. There are many different tools that will help the project manager in multiple ways. There are solutions to help with the documentation processes along with monitoring programs. Each one has a specific purpose that can help an organization to become more efficient on how they use their time and resources while on the job.

One of the not so apparent of the project solutions that makes use of the monitoring programs is all the data these programs acquire in the execution phase of a project’s lifecycle. This makes it easier to analyze the results for a possible solution in helping your organization to being more efficient. It can also make a significant contribution in the assembling of the necessary reports for the project. With each one being used, the time required to complete a project will be reduced.

The use of project solutions in a business venture is how problems are solved. It also lays down a path for improvement of an organization’s systems so improvements can be made. This makes it possible to cut out the waste in a process and make your production facility more efficient so the profits of your revenue stream will increase.

Feasibility Study

Financial Planning with Project Management Tools

Creating a Financial Plan with Project Management Tools

Within this article, we will help you as a Project Manager to budget for project expenditure by describing:

How to create a Project Financial Plan with Project Management Tools

Early in the Project Planning phase, you will need to define the overall budget for the project implementation. However setting a budget isn’t an easy task. In fact, many experienced Project Managers would say that its more of an Art rather than a Science! As challenging as it is, there are 4 steps you can take to create an accurate and realistic budget, by documenting a project “Financial Plan”:

Step 1: List the Financial Expenses

The first step taken when defining a Financial Plan and setting a project budget, is to identify all of the types of expenses that are likely to be incurred throughout the Project Lifecycle.

Typically, most projects spend the majority of their budget on purchasing, leasing, renting or contracting the resources to the project (e.g. labor, equipment and materials). However other types of expenses incurred may include those related to the:

  • Procurement of resources from suppliers
  • Establishment of a Project Office
  • Administration of the project

Step 2: Quantify the Financial Expenses

Once you have identified a detailed list of expenses to be incurred throughout the project, the next step is to forecast the unit cost of each expense type listed. The unit cost is simply the cost of a single unit of a particular expense item. For instance, the unit cost for:

  • labor may be calculated as the cost per hour supplied
  • equipment may be calculated as the rental cost per day
  • materials may be calculated as the purchase cost per quantity

After listing the unit costs, you should calculate the total amount of each expense item needed to undertake the project using these project management tools. For instance:

  • Identify the number of roles required
  • Quantify the items of equipment needed
  • Determine the amount of materials required
  • Quantify the procurement items to be sourced from suppliers
  • Calculate the administration costs the project

Step 3: Construct an Expense Schedule

You have now collated all the information needed to build a detailed expense schedule. This schedule enables the Project Manager to calculate the total cost of undertaking the project on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.

To create an Expense Schedule, build a table which lists all of the expense types down the left hand side of page, and all of the weeks in the year across the page. Then identify for each week and for each expense type, the amount of financial expenditure to budget. Once complete, you can sum up all of the expenses for any particular week to gain a weekly budget for the entire project.

Of course you may wish to calculate a daily, monthly or yearly view, based on your particular project need. Also don’t forget to list any assumptions made during the creation of this Financial Plan. For example, it may be assumed that:

  • “The project delivery dates will not change during this project.”
  • “The unit costs forecast are accurate to within 5%.”
  • “The funds listed by this plan will be available as required.”

And finally, list any constraints identified during this financial planning process. For example:

  • “Limited information was available when identifying costs”
  • “A market shortage has resulted in a high labor costs”

Step 4: Define the Financial Process

Now that you have created a detailed Expense Schedule, you need to define the process for monitoring and controlling expenses (i.e. costs) throughout the Project Lifecycle. Define the Cost Management Process for your project by documenting the:

  • Purpose of the process
  • Steps involved in undertaking the process
  • Roles and responsibilities involved in undertaking the process
  • Templates used to support the process

There you have it! By completing the 4 steps listed above, you will be able to create a comprehensive Financial Plan for your project and ensure that you consistently produce project deliverables within budget. To complete a project inside budge, implement project management tools.