Project Scheduling & Cost Planning Skills

Importance of effective project scheduling and cost planning

Link between project schedule, cost, and overall project success

Key challenges and benefits of efficient scheduling and cost management

Defining project scope and deliverables

Creating a comprehensive Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

WBS as the basis for project scheduling and cost estimation

Techniques for activity duration estimation: expert judgment, historical data, etc.

Optimistic, pessimistic, and most likely estimates

Creating a network diagram and critical path analysis

Understanding the Critical Path Method and its significance

Identifying critical activities and float in the project schedule

Schedule compression techniques for meeting project deadlines

Different cost estimation methods: bottom-up, analogous, parametric, etc.

Estimating direct and indirect project costs

Contingency and reserve analysis in cost estimation

Developing the project budget based on cost estimates

Cost control techniques for managing project expenses

Handling cost variances and corrective actions

Introduction to Earned Value Management (EVM)

Calculating Earned Value (EV), Planned Value (PV), and Actual Cost (AC)

EVM performance indicators: Cost Performance Index (CPI) and Schedule Performance Index (SPI)