Software Project Management: Budget

ResearchColab
Project Budget
Team: Reckless 7
Institute of Information Technology
University of Dhaka
25 November, 2016

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Contents
1. Project Budget Management ........................................................................2
2. Defining The Budget ......................................................................................3
2.1 Resource Requirements .............................................................................4
2.2 Budget Estimate.........................................................................................4
2.3 Budget Development .................................................................................5
2.4 Budget Approval.........................................................................................6
3. Executing the Budget .....................................................................................6
3.1 Budget Baseline..........................................................................................6
3.2 Publish Budget ...........................................................................................6
3.3 Budget Execution .......................................................................................7
4. Budget Control...............................................................................................7
4.1 Budget Reporting .......................................................................................7
4.2 Earned Value Management........................................................................8
4.3 Budget Analysis..........................................................................................8
5. Budget Update...............................................................................................9
5.1 Budget Changes .........................................................................................9
5.2 Corrective Actions....................................................................................10
5.3 Communicate Changes.............................................................................10

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1. Project Budget Management
A project budget is the total sum of money allocated for the particular purpose of the
project for a specific period of time. The goal of budget management is to control
project costs within the approved budget and deliver the expected project goals.
Our definition of a successful project is one that meets four success criteria: that the
project’s scope is delivered on schedule, it is delivered within budget and, once
delivered, it meets the quality expectations of the sponsor and stakeholders.
The focus of this chapter is on managing and controlling the project budget
throughout the entire project life cycle while relating budget control to the other
success criteria.
Budget management consists of a series of tasks and steps designed to help manage
the costs of the project, the steps are:
 Defining the Budget
 Executing the Budget
 Controlling the Budget
 Updating the Budget
Inputs: Inputs for the project budget management include the following
documents or sources of information:
 WBS
 Project contract or initial budget
 Resource requirements
 Resource cost estimates
 Activity duration estimates
 Historical information
 Market conditions
 Sponsor and organization policies
Outputs: The project team will use the above information to develop three
important documents for the project:
 Cost estimates by activity
 the Project Budget
 the Budget Variance Report

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Inputs Process Outputs
 WBS
 Resource
requirements
 Cost estimates
 Schedule
 Historical information
 Market condition
 Policies
 Plan - Define and estimate
the resource requirements
and develop budget
 Do – Obtain approval, and
publish budget, authorize
expenses
 Check –Budget control and
performance analysis
 Adapt – Update budget, set
corrective
actions
 Project Budget
Baseline
 Budget variance
report
 Budget updates
Budgeting serves as a control mechanism where actual costs can be compared with
and measured against the budget. The budget is often a fairly set parameter in the
execution of the project. When a schedule begins to slip, cost is proportionally
affected. When project costs begin to escalate, the project manager should revisit
the Project Plan to determine whether scope, budget, or schedule needs adjusting.
To develop the budget, the applicable cost factors associated with project tasks are
identified. The development of costs for each task should be simple and direct and
consist of personal resource, material, and other direct costs. Cost of performing a
task is directly related to the personnel assigned to the task, the duration of the task,
and the cost of any non-personal items required by the task.
2. Defining the Budget
The project manager is responsible to estimate the budget required to complete
project activities. The Project Manager should allocate all costs to project activities,
and all aspects of the project, including the cost of internal and external human
resources, equipment, travel, materials and supplies, should be incorporated. The
budget should be much more detailed and more accurate than it was on the project
proposal
The Project Manager can use manual or automated tools to generate the budget
estimate. The budgeting tools may be simple spreadsheets or complex budget
estimating tool. For historical purposes, and to enable the budget to be refined, the
Project Manager should always maintain notes on how this budget was derived. Cost

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estimating checklists help to ensure that all preliminary budgeting information is
known and all bases are covered. The Project Manager must also include in the
budget the cost of both the human resources and the equipment and materials
required to perform the work. The method by which staff and products will be
acquired for the project will directly affect the budgeting process.
As the budget estimate is being developed, additional tasks may be identified
because the work is being further defined. It may be necessary to update the WBS
and the project schedule to include the activities identified during budget estimating,
such as equipment, materials, and other non-human resources.
2.1 Resource Requirements
Resource requirements involve determining what resources (people, equipment,
services, and material) and the quantities of those resources are required to
complete the project.
The projects’ WBS, scope statement, historical information, resource information,
and policies are inputs used to determine the resources for the project. The main
output is a list of resources requirements that provides the basis for budget
estimating and budget controls, and provide valuable information to the project
resource management process.
Human resources/Project Staffing
The project will develop a list of the human resource requirements detailing the
expertise level, areas of experience in designing, programming, testing. This
information will be used in the Resource management process to develop the project
team for Researchcolab.com project.
Equipment and Material resources
Equipment includes all the specialized tools needed by the project, from logistic
support to Laptop, desktop, premises and utility.
2.2 Budget Estimate
Once all project requirements have been documented, the next step is to determine
the costs of each requirement which will result in the creation of the project budget.

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A cost estimate, which is the process to approximate the costs that the project will
spend to get or use the project resources.
Work hour breakdown
As with developing a project schedule, documenting assumptions made while
developing the project budget is critical to the success of the project. Without clear
documentation of these assumptions, tracking the budget is not only difficult but
risky
2.3 Budget Development
The project budget is used to communicate what amounts will spent on categories of
resources within a given time period.
Total persons working 7
Work hour per person per day 1
Total working days 60
Total work hours per person 60
Work hours in total 420
Type Sector Breakdown Frequency Amount (BDT)
Opex
Project staffing
Total work hours 420
Daily 63,000/= BDT
Cost per person per
hour
150/= BDT
Logistic
Transport 1,000/= BDT
Ongoing 11,500/= BDT
Report Printing 1,500/= BDT
Web hosting 9,000/= BDT
Utility
Internet bills (7
person, 2 months)
7,000/= BDT
Ongoing 7,000/=
Miscellaneous Ongoing 2,000/=
Capex
Laptop Laptop computers 7 Pcs One time 2,80,000/=
Desktop Desktop computers 3 Pcs One time 1,20,000/=

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2.4 Budget Approval
The final steps in estimating the budget is to get approval. The completed project
budget should be reviewed by the project team and be reviewed by the project
sponsor. Once the project budget has been completed the next steps is to get
approval for the project budget, this occurs at three times during the project
lifecycle- during project negotiations with the sponsor which lead to the contact
budget, during the planning phase of the project when the project budget is
developed in more detail, following the project’s chart of accounts, and becomes the
baseline budget.
Approval of the project budget can result in negotiations between the project team
and the sponsor, depending on the size of the budget these negotiations can take
some time before the budget is approved and a contract is signed.
3. Executing the Budget
In this section we will describe the budget in project execution.
3.1 Budget Baseline
Once the project budget has been reviewed and approved the next step is to create a
budget baseline, the baseline is a time-phased budget that project managers use to
measure and monitor budget performance. The budget baseline will be used to
control the budget using the Earned Value calculations to determine how the project
is performing according to the progress made
3.2 Publish Budget
The approved budget needs to be communicated to all people that will use it to
monitor, control and make decisions based on the information of the budget. The list
of people comes from the team/stakeholder communication mentioned in the
project communication management plan.
Premises Ongoing 2,40,000/=
Total anticipated costs 7,23,500 /=

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3.3 Budget Execution
Executing the budget is the action of authorizing the expenses approved on the
project budget, the project manager then initiates to carry the activities that lead to
form project team, purchase of equipment, materials and services, all according to a
project procurement plan developed during the project planning. This step occurs
after the budget has been approved and the project authorized to start its activities
according to the project plan.
4. Budget Control
Monitoring and controlling the project budget ensures that only the appropriate
project changes are included in the budget baseline, that information about
authorized changes are communicated and corrective actions are taken by project
manager. The action of budget control is also a process of managing the budget.
Budget management is the process by which costs or expenses incurred on the
project are formally identified, approved and paid. Purchase order forms are
completed for each set of related project expenses such as staffing, equipment and
materials costs. Depending on the authorization level the purchase order forms are
approved and recorded by the project manager for tracking, sponsor reporting and
auditing purposes.
4.1 Budget Reporting
The typical report contains a list of all budget accounts (COA) and columns that list
the budget baseline, the cumulative expenses to date, the balance to date and the
burn ration or how the budget is spend according to the yearly budget plan. Below is
an example of a budget report:
 Expense Reports, reports provide the expenses to date by account, project
name and
funding code.
 Variance Reports, show the difference between what has been expensed and
the
approved budget, the balance for each account.

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 Burn Ratio Reports, shows the rate at which the project is using the budget
according
to the original plan, a quick method to see if the project budget is on track.
4.2 Earned Value Management
Performance of the project will be measured using Earned Value Management. The
following four Earned Value metrics is used to measure to projects cost performance:
 Schedule Variance (SV)
 Cost Variance (CV)
 Schedule Performance Index (SPI)
 Cost Performance Index (CPI)
If the Schedule Performance Index or Cost Performance Index has a variance of
between 0.1 and 0.2 the Project Manager must report the reason for the exception.
If the SPI or CPI has a variance of greater than 0.2 the Project Manager must report
the reason for the exception and provide management a detailed corrective plan to
bring the projects performance back to acceptable levels.
Performance Measure Yellow Red
Schedule Performance Index (SPI) Between 0.9 and 0.8
or Between 1.1 and
1.2
Less Than 0.8 or
Greater than 1.2
Cost Performance Index (CPI) Between 0.9 and 0.8
or Between 1.1 and
1.2
Less Than 0.8 or
Greater than 1.2
4.3 Budget Analysis
Identify the causes for the deviations from plan. Major deviations from the budget
baseline need to be analysed to determine what caused the difference so that steps
can be taken to prevent the situation from happening again in the future, or with
similar projects.

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 Forecasting
Earned Value enables the project manager to forecast the probable final cost and
schedule results on the project. With Earned Value, the project does not have to wait
until it is almost complete to know that it has a cost problem. Earned Value gives a
project manager an “early warning” signal in time to take corrective action, in time to
influence the final results by taking corrective actions.
The Control Thresholds for this project is a CPI or SPI of less than 0.8 or greater than
1.2. If the project reaches one of these Control Thresholds a Cost Variance
Corrective Action Plan is required. The Project Manager will present the Project
Sponsor with options for corrective actions within five business days from when the
cost variance is first reported. Within three business days from when the Project
Sponsor selects a corrective action option, the Project Manager will present the
Project Sponsor with a formal Cost Variance Corrective Action Plan. The Cost
Variance Corrective Action Plan will detail the actions necessary to bring the project
back within budget and the means by which the effectiveness of the actions in the
plan will be measured.
5. Budget Update
Budget update for ResearchColab project is described bellow.
5.1 Budget Changes
Updates to the budget come from approved changes to the budget. For most
projects changes to the budget need to be approved by the sponsor, in some
instances the sponsor can give the project a small percentage that the project can
use to cover small budget modifications
It is important that the project manager understands the sponsor contract clauses
and monitors, with special attention the accounts or budget items that have
restrictions. Not doing so may result in losses to the project.

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5.2 Corrective Actions
If the project is under or over budget of the defined limit then the project manager
needs to take corrective actions to bring the budget back on track, these actions may
include trade-offs that will need to be discussed with sponsor, trade-off include
reducing the scope or lowering the quality. Corrective actions may include the use of
alternative options to produce the similar output using different inputs, the project
manager will implement the corrective actions and monitor their performance to see
if they are effective in reducing the project expenses and help bring the project back
on track. Corrective actions need to be consulted with the project team so that
changes are implemented.
5.3 Communicate Changes
Changes to the budget need to be communicated and incorporated on the system
that track change control. Communicating the changes of the budget to the team
member that will use the information helps reduce the chances that work will be
done on activities that have been either cancelled or postponed.

Software Project Management: Budget

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