As a Project Manager, it is important to consider the estimating costs and the allocating resources. There are several different ways to create a budget, and several different points of view when it comes to a budget plan. However, it is important to keep in mind that you don't want to overestimate or underestimate the budget, so the task is not an easy one. With that said, I found a few online resources that explain how to estimate costs associated with an ID project.
The first site was http://woork.blogspot.com/2009/02/simple-process-to-estimate-time-and.html. This blog was very informational and provided excessive charts and tips on how to estimate costs. It gives every step from start to finish on what to do when creating a project. This site can be extremely beneficial to anyone developing a project, but more specifically a budget plan.
The second site that I found useful was http://www.cognitivedesignsolutions.com/Information/ProjectMgt.htm#planCosts. This site has every aspect of the design process. A PM could really benefit from using this site, because it provides everything from project objectives to scope. This site was actually helpful to me when I was working on my Project Schedule. It has an abundance of information pertinent to creating a project.
As I stated, these online resources are beneficial to a PM, as they have been helpful to me in this stage of my project. I would recommend these to anyone in my situation who could possibly need some assistance with estimating costs and allocating resources.
Nicole,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your research! While the first site has some useful information on budgeting web-based projects, I found your second site (Cognitive Design Solutions) to be a wealth of information about the art and science of creating instructional materials. Do you think this company (which is marketing its training solutions) would advocate for the top-down budgeting approach or the bottom-up approach, as described by Portny et al. (2008)? Do you get a sense that the author was being purposefully vague about his/her approach to budgeting? Why do you think that is? Could he/she be allowing for flexibility depending on the client?
Again, thanks for sharing!
- Lindsay
designingdiscovery.blogspot.com
Resources
Portny, S., Mantel, S., Meredith, J., Shafer, S., Sutton, M., & Kramer, B. (2008). Project management: Planning, scheduling, and controlling projects. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, Inc.