Software for Project Management
Project Cost Management
Increases Projects' Success Rate

Do you find increasing your projects' success rate a constant challenge?

Then, software for project management can help you increase this rate by improving your Project Cost Management.

According to the Project Management Institute Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, Third Edition, Project Cost Management includes the processes involved in planning, estimating, budgeting and controlling costs so that the project can be completed within the approved budget.

The Project Cost Management processes include the following:

Cost Estimating

Developing an approximation of the costs of the resources needed to complete project activities.

Cost Budgeting

Aggregating the estimated costs of individual activities or work packages to establish a cost baseline.

Cost Control

Influencing the factors that create cost variances and controlling changes to the project budget.

Let us now analyze the difficult challenges that software for project management helps to contain in Project Cost Management.

Cost Estimating

You develop the activity cost estimates in computerized spreadsheets such as Microsoft Excel. The activity cost estimates are cost estimates for each schedule activity within a work package.

In cost estimating you have two challenges!

Your first challenge is to quickly, accurately and entirely export all the activity cost estimates data from your computerized spreadsheet into the project database.

And, your second challenge after exporting the cost estimate data is to establish your total cost baseline, in the project database, for measuring project performance.

Project management software database helps you to efficiently hold and manipulate the project data.

It is in the project database where you aggregate the schedule activity cost estimates by work packages in accordance with the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). You then aggregate the work package cost estimates for the higher component levels of the WBS, such as control accounts, and ultimately for the entire project.

Sophisticated software for project management tools help you to export the activity cost estimates from the computerized spreadsheets into the project database. These tools, after exporting, help you to aggregate as described above by summing up the estimated costs by periods.

Hence, the project management software tools help you to establish your total cost baseline for measuring project performance. The cost baseline is your time-phased budget that you use as a basis against which to measure, monitor and control overall cost performance on the project.

Cost Control

Cost Control challenges are as follows:

• Assuring that potential cost overruns do not periodically exceed the authorized funding and in total for the project.

• Accurately monitoring cost performance to detect and understand variances from the cost baseline.

• Accurately recording all appropriate cost changes against the cost baseline.

• Acting proactively to bring expected cost overruns within acceptable limits.

• Interpreting accurately the positive and negative cost variances to determine the cause and the magnitude of the variance. Your correct interpretation enables you to decide if the variance requires corrective action.

• Monitoring accurately the project financials and keeping your project cost data in sync with data in your accounting systems.

Software for project management tools help you to contain these cost control challenges by:

• Efficiently holding your total cost baseline in the project database.

• Producing cost performance reports that provide information on cost and resource performance as a result of actual work progress. This information helps you to effectively carry out the cost performance measurement analysis.

• Collecting work performance information pertaining to the status and cost of project activities being performed.

  This work performance information helps you in forecasting. Forecasting is making estimates or predictions of conditions in the project's future based on information and knowledge available at the time of the forecast.

  You generate, update and reissue forecasts as the project is executed and progressed based on the accurate work performance information that is churned out by the software for project management.

  The work performance information is about the project's past performance and any information that could impact the project in the future. For example, the total cost estimate at completion and the cost estimate to complete (balance) the project.

• Monitoring the project to date planned value versus the project to date actual cost and to forecast the effects of changes or variances.

• Enabling you to hold a total project budget that includes contingency reserves.

  Contingency reserves are held as a completely separate item as they are not a part of the project cost baseline.

  Contingency reserves are included in the budget for the project but are out of the project cost baseline. That is, the software for project management does not include the contingency reserves in the project's earned value calculations.

Now, what software for project management helps you to effectively face all the above-analyzed Project Cost Management challenges?...

Microsoft Project Standard, the world's leading software for project management, has features that help you to effectively face the entire above-analyzed Project Cost Management challenges!

Microsoft Project Standard makes you very effective in managing your project cost, helping you to overall increase the success rate of your projects.

There are two versions of Microsoft Project Standard that you may want to consider for your use. These are Microsoft Project 2003 Standard and Microsoft Project 2007 Standard.

Microsoft Project 2007 Standard is the newest version of the Microsoft Project Standard, software for project management. It is an enhanced version of Microsoft Project 2003 Standard. Microsoft Project 2007 Standard has many new and improved features over Microsoft Project 2003 Standard.

Now, click the appropriate text link below to acquire the version of the Microsoft Project Standard, software for project management, that is best for you at the best price available, anywhere!

Click this text link to buy Microsoft Project 2003 Standard software for project management at the best price

Click this text link to buy Microsoft Project 2007 Standard Version Upgrade at the best price.

Click this text link to buy Microsoft Project 2007 Standard software for project management at the best price.

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