Time and Cost Estimation Using Software to Create the Wbs, Gantt Chart, and Critical Path
Prior to beginning work on this assignment,
- Read chapters 9 and 10 from the text Contemporary Project Management: Plan-driven and Agile Approaches.
- Review Week 3 required and recommended resources to complete this assignment.
Now that you have conceptualized your project, it is time to add more details to your project by incorporating time and cost estimates.
To complete this assignment, you need to:
- Using Smartsheet, create the work breakdown structure (WBS), the Gantt chart, and estimate the cost for various components of your project.
- Remember to review the project requirements (five deliverables, 10 tasks, etc.).
- Your completed deliverable should look similar to the images.
- Long description
- Long description
- Once completed, copy and paste all the screenshots (you may have to take multiple screenshots to show your work) onto a Word Document and upload it to WayPoint.
1) Time and Cost Estimating
If I were a project manager in a construction Company, I would begin time and cost estimation by breaking the project into manageable parts of work that can easily be estimated to arrive at a total estimate of the time required to complete the project and the resources that are needed to accomplish the project. Expert judgment from experienced team members would be incorporated in estimating time with analogous estimation that uses data from similar past activities.
Estimating the cost would require calculating direct expenses: direct costs include expenditures on labor, the materials used, and equipment, as well as indirect costs, which include allowances for overheads and contingency. I would give brief information on the estimates, such as milestones, time, and budgetary estimates, to assist the executive audience. I would acquaint myself with other initiatives whose scope is unfamiliar to me through in-depth study, expert consultations, and documentation reviews (Asana, 2024). In addition, I would employ various instruments like Work Breakdown Structures. To ensure the estimate was accurate and understand what others anticipated from me, I would involve stakeholders far earlier.
2) Critical Path
A critical path is the series of tasks that take the most time in a project, so I would list all the activities within a large project and their dependencies to arrive at the critical path with the help of a Gantt chart or a network diagram. Each activity’s first and last date would be calculated to determine the most extended sequence of dependent activities, forming the critical path. Resource availability, time required to complete a task, and constraints are more important factors that must be considered (Asana, 2024).
Once the critical path is defined, I will constantly monitor it since any delay on the critical path will inevitably result in a delay in the project’s completion date. If I see that the tasks are falling behind schedule or connected in a way that one is dependent on the other, I could adjust resource allocation or compress time through techniques like fast-tracking or crashing to ensure the project stays at an optimal level within the budget and timeline.
Reference
Asana. (2024, March 28). Critical path method: How to use CPM for project management. Asana. https://asana.com/resources/critical-path-method