Friday, June 1, 2012

Estimating Costs and Allocating Resources

Estimating Costs
and Allocating Resources

This week I examined several resources to help a project manager when estimating costs and allocating resources. According to Greer, "Cost estimates are your best guess of the costs of the resources you will need to complete the project tasks" (Greer, 2010, p. 28). Greer (2010) goes on to indicate that the main costs of a project are usually related to labor. One of the excellent tools to closely examine schedules (which are closely tied to labor) is the Gantt chart. According to Portny, Mantel, Meredith, Shafer, Sutton, and Kramer, "A Gantt chart is a type of bar chart that displays project activities as bars measured against a horizontal timescale" (Portny, Mantel, Meredith, Shafer, Sutton, & Kramer, 2008, p. 183). Two of the resources I found this week are related to Gantt charts. The third resource has many suggestions and guidelines for estimations.


The Projects Web Site of the University of Edinburgh

http://www.projects.ed.ac.uk/methodologies/Full_Software_Project_Template/EstimationGuidelines.shtml

This website contains much useful information regarding project and task estimation. Included in this information are several estimation techniques such as the three-point estimation where the project manager looks at the best-case estimate, the most likely estimate, in the worst-case estimate. These values are then placed into a formula to calculate a standard deviation to assist the project manager in determining the proper estimate. There is also a useful three-point estimation spreadsheet template and a worked example to serve as a guideline.


GanttProject

http://www.ganttproject.biz/

This website provides free project scheduling and management software. The software is open source, cross-platform, and free. Did I mention it's free? The software appears to be well thought out and includes capabilities to create Gantt charts, resource allocation load charts, and PERT charts. I have not spent much time with it but it does appear to be fairly user-friendly. Additionally, the information may be exported as a report in a PDF format that is both professional and easy to follow. The software also will import projects created in Microsoft Project© which could make it useful for their professional who wishes to share something created with that software with other people who do not have that software available. There is also a 15 minute tutorial on the site demonstrating the software.

YouTube©

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQwE0Xv1lAA


My final resource regarding project estimation is an excellent tutorial located on YouTube. The tutorial explains how to create a Gantt chart using Microsoft Excel 2007. It is well done and easy to follow.

I hope you find these resources as useful and informative as I did.

– jeff


References:

GanttProject. (2003-2012). Retrieved May 31, 2012, from GanttProject: http://www.ganttproject.biz/

Greer, M. (2010). The project management minimalist: Just enough PM to rock your projects! (Laureate custom ed.). Baltimore, MD: Laureate Education, Inc.

Phillips, R. (n.d.). Making a Gantt Chart in Excel 2007. Retrieved May 31, 2012, from YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQwE0Xv1lAA

Portny, S. E., Mantel, S. J., Meredith, J. R., Shafer, S. M., Sutton, M. M., & Kramer, B. (2008). Project Management: Planning, scheduling, and controlling projects. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Projects: Estimation Guidelines and Templates. (2011, June 13). Retrieved May 31, 2012, from The University of Edinburgh: http://www.projects.ed.ac.uk/methodologies/Full_Software_Project_Template/EstimationGuidelines.shtml


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5 comments:

  1. Clarence BrownJune 2, 2012 at 11:52 PM

    Jeff,

    You have found some grear resources. I particularly like the site http://www.ganttproject.biz/.

    It has some great example Gantt charts and the files that come with it are great.

    Have you seen the follwing site: http://sonjanmcp.blogspot.com/2011/10/estimating-costs-and-allocating.html

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Jeff HarrisJune 3, 2012 at 9:44 PM

      Hi Clarence,

      Thanks for the post. The site you mentioned had some other good links within it. I particularly like the http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/fall123/gordon123.html site as it has an Excel based estimator. (I love Excel). After finding that Gantt chart software, I checked out the one that Sheila recommended and really liked it. You might want to give it a look. https://www.smartsheet.com/

      Thanks again for the response.

      -jeff

      Delete
  2. ZoyaJune 3, 2012 at 3:05 PM

    Jeff,

    Great resources. I liked the software that you posted for the Gantt Chart. It is very helpful for this week's assignment.
    I downloaded it and I am planning g to use it.
    I posted a smiler link to a software that can be used for estimating cost. You can find it on the following link:
    http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/fall123/gordon123.html
    the software is embedded inside the article. Check it out and let me know.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Jeff HarrisJune 3, 2012 at 9:46 PM

      Hi Zoya,

      Thanks for the response.You are correct in the usefulness of that site. I am an Excel geek and really enjoy seeing how people have used that product. I'm glad you like the Gantt chart software. I plan to look at it more closely later. I ended up using the software that Sheila found located at https://www.smartsheet.com/
      You might want to give that a look also.

      Thanks again for the reply.

      -jeff

      Delete
  3. Jeff HarrisJune 3, 2012 at 9:48 PM

    The following Comment was left by Sheila. For some reason it shows up in my email instead of on my blog. Anyway, I have copied it and pasted it below.
    -enjoy
    -jeff
    ******************copy of comment*************************
    Sheila M. Sylvestre has left a new comment on your post "Estimating Costs and Allocating Resources":

    Hi Jeff!
    I agree with your point that labor is the largest cost in any project. It can be so tricky to estimate accurately. Our text suggests that we “develop weighted labor rates” (Portny, Mantel, Meredith, Shafer, Sutton & Kramer, 2008, p. 129) which would itemize both direct costs (such as project materials, changes in equipment, supplies, etc) and indirect labor costs (such as the finance, finance or legal resources involved). I have not yet completed my project for this week, but I hope I can use a Gantt chart to properly show all of these costs.

    Thank you for the site on FREE Gantt chart software. I plan on downloading and exploring it when I have a bit of time. “Gantt charts can represent different views of the project activity against a calendar”(Russell, 2000, p. 45). Also, although it is not free, check out THIS (https://www.smartsheet.com/online-gantt?s=8&c=3&m=416&a=009g&k=gantt%20chart&gclid=CK2u6oHWlrACFUdN4Aod3BAG2g) example of a Gantt Sheet provider on line called SMARTSHEET. You can download it for FREE for a 30 day trial

    References

    Portny, S. E., Mantel, S. J., Meredith, J. R., Shafer, S. M., Sutton, M. M., & Kramer, B. E. (2008). Project management: Planning, scheduling, and controlling projects. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

    Russell, L. (2000). Project management for trainers. Alexandria, VA: ASTD Press.

    ReplyDelete

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