Detailed planning – Initial estimation - Simple cost plan
Initial estimation
Simple cost plan
Obviously, until a detailed plan is available covering the initial stage of the project it is very hard to estimate costs.
As part of project approval the Project Board must be presented with an overall estimate of the project costs.
The first stage plan is required in more detail for the project approval process.
Initial cost estimation will be less accurate and the extra effort involved for a more detailed costing may be too high for the majority of the project early on.
Hence, the initial cost estimate may be rather simplistic as shown below.
The summary shows the costs for a variety of resources for different periods of the project.
These can be totalled for each period to represent a simple cash flow.
Any estimation of costs should be done in liaison with the financial department for their expert input.