What is Project Schedule and Cost Control in Project Management?

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What is Project Schedule and Cost Control in Project Management?

The project is considered successful when it is delivered on time and within budget. Project cost and project schedule are the two main critical and uncertain aspects of the project lifecycle. Forecasting cost and schedule both are quite challenging.  Project managers play a vital role in the completion of the project with respect to all the processes of project management aligned with Schedule, Cost,  Scope, Quality, Resources, Risks, Changes, Stakeholders by,

• Keeping projects on track
• Setting time frame
• Assigning resources and allocating time
• Monitoring and controlling cost
• Reduce errors
• Conflict Management
• Reducing errors
• Keeping a record of all the project activities

Successful completion of the project highly depends on effective and efficient Project Schedule and Cost Control. Project Managers hold the responsibility of deciding the resources and getting the project task done within the allocated budget and time.

What is Project Schedule?

The project schedule is a documented framework of the project’s milestones, project activities, deliverables, and timeframe that is highly efficient for any project. The project schedule can be related to the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). It gives an overview of the overall project’s timeframe. The project schedule is nothing but giving the project a reliable timeframe. Project Schedule helps in tracking the project in all the 5 phases of project management.

There are many tools to develop a project schedule. Gantt Charts are used for small projects and network analysis can be used for large projects.

What are the inputs required to prepare the Project Schedule?

The requirements to create a project schedule is as follows:

1. Scope of the project: Detailed description of the scope is required to decide the start and end date, know the limitations and set the project milestones to meet the stakeholder’s expectations.
2. Resource availability: Before assigning the resource it is very important to know the resource availability. This will be helpful to know if there are any other constraints.
3. Working calendars: List of holidays, working shifts, working days, employee holidays are required to create a project schedule.
4. Project risks: Risk assessment is carried out to make sure there is enough time to deal with the identified risks or make alternate plans.

How to develop a Project Schedule?

Project schedule management involves listing the tasks, deliverables, duration, stakeholder assigned, start and end date of the tasks within the project. The main purpose of the project schedule is to know,

• What needs to be done?
• Who will do the task?
• When is the deadline for the project?
• When should the task needs to be finished?

The Project Schedule is the main output of the Develop Schedule process. Defining activities, sequencing activities, estimating the activity durations.

Define Activities

The list of all the project activities to be conducted during the project execution is documented in this process. The exact actions to be taken to achieve the project objective is the main output of this process. In this process, the input, tools and techniques and output is clearly defined.

Sequence Activities

The process of identifying the priorities of the project activities and documenting the same. The sequence of all the project activities is documented in this process. It is one of the most important processes of project management to keep the project flow smoothly.

Estimate Activity Durations

Estimating the activity durations refers to document the time allotted to each project activity. This process helps to set the whole project timeline according to the sequence of project activities.

Develop Schedule

The process of combining all the components of schedule management to the project timeline is the scheduling process. The document is created by analyzing the sequence of project activities and the estimated duration.

What are the tools and techniques to develop a project schedule?

The following are the tools and techniques used to develop a project schedule:

1. Schedule network analysis: The graphical representation of all the project activities are listed according to sequence and the duration. Schedule network analysis is generally carried out through Gantt Charts or PERT Charts.
2. Critical Path Analysis: The technique used to prioritizing the high-risk task by calculating the critical path in order to complete the project in minimum time. It determines the best possible start and end date of the project.
3. Schedule Compression: The technique used to reduce the project duration considering all the constraints. This technique is used only in certain activities. The two methods are used for schedule compression.

• Crashing
• Fast-tracking

There are many other tools and techniques used in project schedule management such as,

• Critical chain method
• Modeling techniques
• Leads and lags
• Resource optimization techniques

What are the softwares used for Scheduling Projects?

The top 10 softwares used for project schedule is listed below:

• monday.com
• Celoxis
• Hive
• ProjectManager.com
• Forecast
• Mavenlink
• Hub Planner
• Microsoft Project Online
• Workfront
• Asana

What Is Cost Control?

The process of monitoring, tracking and controlling according to the actual cost of the project is cost control. The success of the project is not only determined by completion. It is very essential to complete the project within the planned budget. Cost control is a challenging task due to uncertain circumstances that might occur throughout the project life-cycle.

In simple terms, the prevention of exceeding the actual cost is cost control. Cost control helps in an increase in profit and carries out the project in the best economical way.

According to PMBOK® Guide – Sixth Edition, Project cost management is defined as Project cost management includes the processes involved in planning, estimating, budgeting, financing, funding, managing, and controlling costs so the project can be completed within the approved budget.

What includes in Cost Control?

Cost control generally manages the overall project costs. There are 5 types of project costs in any project. They are,

• Fixed Cost - Any Cost which is fixed throughout the project and does not fluctuate.
• Variable Cost - Any cost which changes in proportion to a product or has a high tendency to variate
• Direct Costs - Costs that are directly linked to the budget of the project.
• Indirect Costs - Costs that are not particularly connected to the project but shared across multiple projects.
• Sunk Cost - Sunk Costs are costs which are already spent, but have failed to generate any business value for the project.
• Total Project Cost: The Total Project Cost (TPC) is calculated by putting together the fixed cost and variable cost and Other Project Costs (OPC). It is important to get the total project cost accurate or close to the accurate figure with minimal tolerance as it would severely impact the project scope and schedule resulting in cost overrun.

The comparison of the cost is done according to the project baseline. Project Baseline is a document with the approved plan of project performance. The project performance is compared within the acceptable guidelines. Project baseline also includes,

• Budget Baseline
• Schedule Baseline
• Scope Baseline
• Quality Baseline

Considering all the aspects of the project baseline, cost control is carried out throughout the project lifecycle.

What are the processes involved in Cost Control?

Cost is the most critical factor in any organization. The process of estimating, allocating and controlling the cost of the whole project comes in project cost management. The budget is fixed according to the project activities. The costs are estimated during the planning phase and controlled if it exceeds during execution.

Before controlling the cost, the cost management plan is prepared, individual project costs of all the project activities are estimated and overall

Plan Cost Management process

The process of cost management plan includes the policies, procedures, and guidelines to plan, manage, and control the project costs. It also includes documenting the costs throughout the project. The cost management plan is done according to the project activities, schedule, resources, and requirements.

Estimate Costs process

This process includes estimating all the monetary resources included in the project activities to achieve the target on scheduled time. The costs are estimated based on the resource requirements. The main objective of this process is to determine the overall cost required to complete the process.

Determine Budget process

The process of combining the cost of all the project activities to establish the formal cost baseline of the overall project. This process helps in project cost flow, risk management. Cost baseline helps in monitoring and controlling the cost of individual activities.

Control Costs process

The process of monitoring and controlling the cost of individual project activities during execution is called a control cost process. The costs are controlled and brought to the cost baseline if it exceeds. The document of cost update is maintained throughout the project.

What are the tools and techniques used for Control Costs?

The following are some of  the cost control techniques used:

1. Project Budget Planning: Planning a  proper budget by setting the cost for all the project activities is one of the techniques used throughout the project lifecycle. The project budget is created with a lot of research and critical thinking
2. Keeping track: Monitoring the expenditures effectively during the execution of project activity is highly essential in order to control cost. If anything new comes up, the project activity is proposed as “change requests”
3. Effective Time Management: Time management is the most essential and effective technique used for cost control. If the project activity goes according to schedule the scope of exceeding the cost is less.
4. Change control: The technique to minimize the changes in order to avoid the excess cost.

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