There are six inputs that are to be used in the process of activity resource estimating. Those six inputs are the activity list, the activity attributes, the organizational process assets, the enterprise environmental factors, and project management plan, and the resource availability.
What is estimate activity resource?
What is Estimate Activity Resource? Estimate activity resource is a process that helps the project team in assessing the nature and number of material, HR, tools, or supplies that is required for the project.
Why is resource estimation important in project management?
Project resource estimation is an important part of project planning. You need to identify all the required projects in a given project and determine their availability before it kicks off. Therefore, make sure that you fully understand the project activities to determine what will be needed for project success accurately.
How to estimate the resources of a project?
How to estimate the resources of a project 1 Resource estimation. The objective of the resource estimate is to allocate the necessary resources to each activity on the list. 2 Estimation of activities’ duration. ... 3 Project planning and critical roadmap. ... 4 Resource balancing. ... 5 Start now estimating correctly. ...
What is the PMBOK estimate activity resources process?
To do this, we consult the PMBOK’s Estimate Activity Resources process. Estimate Activity Resources is the process of estimating the type and quantities of material, human resources, equipment, or supplies required to perform each activity.
How to estimate resources?
What is the objective of resource estimate?
What is resource balancing?
What is resource in a project?
What is a three point estimate?
What is equivalent estimate?
Do resources need to be scheduled in advance?
See 4 more
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How do you estimate resources needed?
Understand the Scope of the Project. ... Know Your Team. ... Get to Know the Industry Climate. ... Analyze Published Estimating Data. ... Reuse Project Resource Plans. ... Analyze Previous Project Data. ... Consider Current Commitments. ... Compare Different Scenarios.
What are the 3 components of estimating projects?
Project work estimation has three components: the initial first cut, commonly known as a SWAG (scientific wild-ass guess), tracking the estimate against the actual numbers, and using the schedule to see what's happening in your project.
What does project estimation require?
A project estimate gives you and your stakeholders a general idea of how much time, effort, and money it'll take to get the job done. That makes it easier to build a feasible project budget and plan so you can set your team and organization up for success.
What element may be used to estimate activity resources?
Resource management is a key element to activity resource estimating and project human resource management.
What are the methods of estimation?
Here are six common estimating methods in project management:Top-down estimate. ... Bottom-up estimate. ... Expert judgment. ... Comparative or analogous estimation. ... Parametric model estimating. ... Three-point estimating.
What is 3 point estimation in project management?
Three-point estimating is a management technique to determine the probable outcomes of future events based on available information. The term refers to the three-points it measures: the best-case estimate, the most likely estimate, and the worst-case estimate.
What are two ways to estimate?
There are different methods for estimation that are useful for different types of problems. The three most useful methods are the rounding, front-end and clustering methods.
What are the steps while estimation of project?
General Project Estimation ApproachStart with the statement of scope.Decompose the software into functions that can each be estimated individually.Calculate the size of each function.Derive effort and cost estimates by applying the size values to your baseline productivity metrics.More items...
Which of the following are types of resources required for a project?
There are three types of resources − work, material, and cost. Work resources − People and equipment to complete the tasks.
What is the importance of estimating resource requirements for work activities?
Estimating the Activity Resources assists the project management team to categorize the type, quantity, and characteristics of resources that are required to complete the activity which allows for more accurate cost and duration estimates.
How do you plan project resources?
7 Steps to Create & Present a Resource Management PlanDetermine the Resources Needed for the Project. ... Match the Right Resources to the Right Tasks. ... Budget the Right Amount of Time for Each Resource. ... Schedule Resources Based on Projected Availability. ... Keep a Pulse on Project Progress. ... Expect to Make Adjustments.More items...•
What are 3 types of cost estimates?
The three types of cost estimates are design, bid, and control estimates. Design estimates are prepared in the project preliminaries which gives the order of magnitude of the project cost.
What are the elements of estimation?
The first is the establishment of standard units of measure. The second component of an estimate is the determination of the quantity of units for each component, which is an actual measurement process: how many linear feet of wire, how many device boxes, and so on.
What are the different parts of the estimates?
In this article, we'll cover the following types of estimates:Preliminary Estimate.Detailed Estimate.Quantity Estimate.Bid Estimate.
What are the essential elements of estimation & costing?
Elements of cost estimation in project management Direct costs: Costs associated with a single area, such as a department or the project itself. Examples of direct costs include fixed labor, materials, and equipment. Indirect costs: Costs incurred by the organization at large, such as utilities and quality control.
Estimate Project Resources: 11 Essential Steps – ProjectPractical
2. Tools & Equipment These are all the items needed for the delivery of the final product. For a construction project, the tools and equipment may include the excavators, drill, and any other machine needed for successful project completion.. For software-related projects, the tools and equipment include all the software needed during the project’s progression.
How to identify and calculate the number of resources needed ... - Quora
Answer: It completely depends on the amount of work, complexity of work, how often you get changes/modification requests from client and the type of development model you follow. Firstly you need to assume how long a single person can take to finish the work. Then based on the time given by the ...
The 5 Best Project Management Estimation Techniques
5. Parametric estimating. Parametric estimation is an extremely precise way of estimating a project. Whether you’re looking at timeline, cost, or resource requirements, parametric estimates are more accurate than other forms of estimate because of how they are calculated.
What is the purpose of estimate activity resources?
Estimate Activity Resources is the process of estimating the type and quantities of material, human resources, equipment, or supplies required to perform each activity. The key benefit of this process is that it identifies the type, quantity, and characteristics of resources required to complete the activity which allows more accurate cost ...
What is parametric estimate?
Parametric Estimating. In this method the work is drilled down into a unit cost, for which an estimate exists from published data or prior experience. For example, the cost per square foot of log home can be gleaned from previous projects. In the engineering industry almost everything is done this way, from the engineering time down to the construction materials.
What is bottom up estimation?
Generally you would perform tasks estimates from the bottom up, meaning each task is given an estimate which is then rolled up into the overall project estimate. Naturally, this is called Bottom Up Estimating . Within each task then, you can employ one of three estimating techniques: Analogous Estimating.
What is resource calendar?
A resource calendar is consulted to determine if the resource is available. This can be a simple listing of when Bill or Mark will be on vacation or occupied on another job site. Or it can be an actual calendar within software that manages the workforce of an organization. Although the exact placement of each task is determined at the very end of the scheduling process using a technique called resource levelling (described at the end of this tutorial) at this point it is sometimes beneficial to consult the resource calendar to make sure the schedule isn’t seriously out of whack due to resource availability.
What is analogous estimate?
Analogous Estimating. This is when you make an analogy to the same, or similar, task that has been performed before. This is the best source of information because actual work completed, even if it requies adjustments, is extremely reliable. For example, if your project is for building a driveway and you’ve done it before, you clearly have a head start. Oftenyou have to make some adjustments, but the starting point is tremendously valuable.
What is the term for the portion of the organization's administration cost that the project must pay for?
Organizational/Administration. The portion of the organization’s administration cost that the project must pay for.
Why is it important to divide the cost over a conservative amount of projects?
In this case it is important to divide the cost over a conservative amount of projects to get a realistic idea of how much the project is “paying” for it. Conservative means a low number of projects – You want to make sure you are justifying the cost of the equipment.
When estimating project resources, do you need to review organizational policies on resource usage?
When estimating project resources, you need to review organizational policies on resource usage to know the limits you can go. Different organizations have policies and rules on how to ask for resources, assign projects, monitor work, and so on.
When estimating the tools and equipment needed for a project, do you have to factor in those that the company may?
When estimating the tools and equipment needed for a project, you may have to factor in those that the company may have to outsource. Generally, these tools and equipment are used for more than one project, and therefore, when coming up with the estimates, you should remember to factor in the available ones.
Why is historical data important?
Historical data plays a huge role in project resource estimation and the development of a budget. Therefore, while estimating the resources that your project team will require in a given project, make sure that you uncover history about the reuse of resources.
What is resource in project management?
Resources is a general term for all the assets required for an organization’s successful functioning or meeting given objectives. Therefore, resources cut across the supply of money, materials, staff, and any other asset ...
What are resources cut across?
Therefore, resources cut across the supply of money, materials, staff, and any other asset that goes into the project’s execution. However, knowing how to estimate all the resources required for a given project may not be as easy as it sounds.
Why is it important to divide the cost of tools and equipment over a low number of projects?
An important hack is to divide the cost of the tools and equipment over a low number of projects to have a realistic estimate of what will be spent on them.
What are the different types of resources?
Here are the common types of resources needed for different projects: 1. Labor. Labor is normally divided into three main categories: direct, indirect, and overhead labor.
What is the estimate resource process?
The estimate activity resources process provides a link that is created between the term of activity and the aggregate work effort required to finish the work. It is vital to reflect the duration of the activity that is continuously proportional to the work effort. The distinctive estimation of the length of the projects is estimated in days and the project team’s effort put in hours.
Why is activity resource estimate useful?
The practical usage of activity resource estimates will help guarantee that enough resources are procured without squandering and excessive expenditure.
What is Estimate Activity Resource?
Estimate activity resource is a process that helps the project team in assessing the nature and number of material, HR, tools, or supplies that is required for the project. One of the advantages of this process is that it identifies the sort, quality, and attributes of the resources that are expected to finish a particular activity. Also, this will likewise allow the cost and duration estimation in a precise manner. This process is performed periodically throughout the project lifecycle as and when needed.
What are the types of hierarchical approaches on resource usage that must be pursued during the estimate activity resources process?
Utilizing relevant tools that help to monitor project phases, assign activities to project team members and time reporting are the types of hierarchical approaches on resource usage that must be pursued during the estimate activity resources process.
What would be extremely valuable for you to check what sort of resources have been utilized?
If there had been a project that is similar to the one in the organization, that would be extremely valuable for you to check what sort of resources have been utilized. Since, most likely, you will use similar resources in your project.
When is it important to consider the availability of the resources?
As a project needs relevant and quality resources, it’s essential for the team to consider the availability of the resources as planned during the estimate activity resources process and outsource the required resource.
Should a project team lease resources?
As a project team might need specific resources for a particular project and is not utilized for any other projects within the organization, then it would be wise to lease the particular resource.
What are the activities in the Estimate Activity Resources process?
There are 4 activities determined in invoicing screen project: analysis, design, development, and test. During Estimate Activity Resources process, these activities are assigned to project team members, their role, experience, and skills are mentioned as well.
What is the purpose of reviewing organizational policies on resource usage?
Reviewing organizational policies on resource usage: There might be policies and guidelines on how to request a resource, how to assign a task, how to monitor etc. For instance, many corporate companies use PPM tool of HP. This tool helps to monitor project phases, assign activities to project team members and time reporting. These kinds of organizational policies on resource usage must be followed during the estimate activity resources process.
What is the acronym for resource breakdown structure?
Create a hierarchical structure of resources: Actually, this is Resource Breakdown Structure and abbreviated as RBS . For instance, if you have 4 software engineers in the software project and 3 of them are reporting to one lead software engineer, this must be highlighted during.
What do you need to complete a project activity?
In order to complete a project activity, you will need performer of the task, for instance, a software developer for a software project or civil engineer for a construction project. Materials that will be used to produce the project deliverable. For instance, cement, wood, steel etc. will be used during construction.
What is the purpose of identifying potentially available resources?
Identifying potentially available resources: If it is possible to allocate who will do a specific project activity, these must be identified.
How many steps are involved in the Ara 13 process?
There ara 13 steps involved this process. Let’s explain them one-by-one.
Do estimate activity resources need to be updated?
Update project documents: As in many other processes, activities done in the estimate activity resources process require an update of project documents as well.
Advantages
The Top-Down approach works well if the project is clearly defined, has a clear end goal and there are previous examples of such projects that a PM can use a guideline. All this information allows a PM to quickly define the major tasks and break those down into smaller chunks of daily tasks.
Disadvantages
Though the Top-Down approach can be useful in terms of quick (and pretty realistic) time and budget estimations, there will most certainly be problems that will come up somewhere in the process of doing all the tasks.
Advantages
Unlike the Top-Down approach, Bottom-Up will involve the whole team in the process of defining the tasks needed to complete a project, allowing to consider all the details that a PM might not know about, and come up with a much more specific figure.
Disadvantages
On the downside, this approach will require significantly more time to answer the ultimate question “how long will it take?” and, since all the team members are actively involved in the brainstorming process, it offers less control over the project.
Choosing the right approach
Of course, stakeholders, PMs and investors all want to have accurate cost and time figures, but the level of accuracy must be balanced with the other needs of the organization. Prioritizing your priorities will come in handy here as well.
What is the purpose of resource estimation?
The main purpose of the activity resource estimating process is to determine the resource requirements for each activity, and therefore this is the major output item from this process.
What are the tools used in estimating?
There are five tools that can be used including: expert judgment, alternative analysis, published estimating data, software and bottom-up estimating.
What is included in a WBS requirement?
The requirement documents may also include information such as the basis for each estimate, the assumptions made for the estimate, and the availability of the resources.
What is bottom up estimation?
Bottom-up estimating involves further decomposition of the component tasks can be individually resourced. It is basically an iteration of defining and sequencing the activities in which each task is broken down into smaller components. Then, individual estimates are developed to determine what specifically is needed to meet the requirements of each of these smaller components.
Who provides expert judgment?
Expert judgment can be provided by members of the project team or by a team leader . However, it often requires an expertise that is not present within the project team and an external group or person with a specific skill set or knowledge is brought in.
What are the disadvantages of a published data set?
The disadvantages are that data does not exist for many activities and that the published data that does exist is based upon the characteristics of the organizations that compiled and published it, which may not correspond to your own.
What is the starting point of an estimating method?
The starting point of an estimating method is, therefore, the MTO and equipment list. When you can determine the market price for materials and the required quantities, you find the material cost.
What are the types of resources you may require on projects?
First, let’s make a distinction between the types of resources you may require on projects: - Material. - Labor. - Overhead. 1. Material cost. Normally you think of material as the physical composition of the asset.
What is the objective of cost engineer?
Our objective as cost engineer is to identify which resources are required, and how much money and time you need to use on them. To estimate the cost of resources, we have to understand the relationship they have to the design of the asset and the method of construction.
What is included in the value of an asset?
However, the value of the asset may also include the cost elements of scrap material or manufacturing spares, construction form work and safety items, and the cost of transporting the material to the work site. 2. Labor cost.
Is money a resource?
Although money and time are sometimes thought of as resources, they only allow or constrain the use of the physical resources just listed. The cost of each activity or asset is determined by the costs of the resources used to create it. A project is basically the path by which this is done:
How to estimate resources?
There are five tools and techniques for estimating activity resources: 1 The judgement of experts: this means involving experts who have already performed this type of work before and obtaining opinions on what resources are needed. 2 Alternative analysis: this means considering different options on how to allocate resources. This includes changing the number of resources and the type of resources used. Many times, there is more than one way to perform a task, and alternative analysis helps you decide between different possibilities. 3 Published estimation data: something that project managers in many industries use to understand how many resources they need for a specific project. These are based on articles, research and studies that collect, analyze and publish data from other people and organizations’ projects. 4 Project management software: these often feature functions designed to help project managers estimate resource needs and constraints and find the best combination for the project in question. 5 The bottom-up estimate: this means splitting complex tasks into simpler tasks and processing the resources needed for each small step. The need or cost of the resources of the individual tasks is then added together to obtain a total estimate. The smaller and more detailed the task, the greater the accuracy of this technique.
What is the objective of resource estimate?
The objective of the resource estimate is to allocate the necessary resources to each activity on the list.
What is resource balancing?
Resource balancing is used to examine and resolve the unequal use of resources, usually related to people or equipment, over time.
What is resource in a project?
Resources are people, equipment, places, money or anything else a project needs to be executed.
What is a three point estimate?
The three-point estimate, i.e. when three numbers come up: a realistic estimate that is more likely to occur, an optimistic estimate that represents the best scenario and a pessimistic estimate that represents the worst scenario. The final estimate is the weighted average of the three.
What is equivalent estimate?
The equivalent estimate, i.e. when looking at similar activities from previous projects and how much time they took.
Do resources need to be scheduled in advance?
Some resources need to be scheduled in advance and may only be available at certain times or times – for example, a room for a kick-off meeting or a rented office.
Estimation of Activities’ Duration
- Once you have finished estimating resources per activity, you have everything you need to understandhow long it will take to complete each activity. Estimating the duration of a task means starting with information about that specific task and then working with the project team to devel…
Project Planning and Critical Roadmap
- The project programmust be approved and signed by the stakeholders and functional managers. This ensures that everyone is familiar with the program, including dates and resource commitments. In addition, (written) confirmation will be required that resources will be available as indicated in the planning. Once approved, the program will become the baseline for the rest of th…
Resource Balancing
- Resource balancing is used to examine and resolve the unequal use of resources, usually related to people or equipment, over time. During the execution of project planning, the project manager will attempt to plan certain activities simultaneously. As the project progresses, however, there are situations where more resources – such as equipment or people – may be needed than are avai…
Start Now Estimating Correctly
- Regardless of project size or budget, estimating activitiescan be a challenging task and a project management software could be of great help!7 Twproject can help a project manager during assignment showing the resource workload, in order to understand if he/she is able to accomplish the task in the given time. It can also help balancing resources: Twproject can help you scheduli…
Estimating Techniques
- Generally you would perform tasks estimates from the bottom up, meaning each task is given an estimate which is then rolled up into the overall project estimate. Naturally, this is called Bottom Up Estimating. Within each task then, you can employ one of three estimating techniques: 1. Analogous Estimating.This is when you make an analogy to the same, or similar, task that has b…
Types of Resources
- At this stage each task on the task list is scrutinized and the resources required to perform the task are identified. For small projects there are four major types of resources: 1. Labor 2. Tools & equipment 3. Material & supplies 4. Fixed cost items like subcontractors, etc.
Labor
- Accountants divide labor into three categories: 1. Direct.Work that results in production units. The hourly unit rate of a laborer, or a salary divided into the number of days or hours they work on the project. It must also include benefits, retirement contributions, bonuses, and any other expense associated with the employee. 2. Indirect. Work that is required to produce deliverables but does…
Tools & Equipment
- This category generally includes all of the items that do not go into the finished product. Things like drill bits that are used up during a project, or the addition of new tools that the company doesn’t already own, and equipment such as software, forklifts, and excavators. Often the tools and equipment will be used over multiple projects. In this case it is important to divide the cost o…
Materials & Supplies
- This includes the items that become part of the finished product, like timber for a log home or gravel for the driveway. Often these items are quoted by the unit, such as per footof timber. Normally you have to calculate the exact quantity and include a bit extra, for things like: 1. The material is not produced in the exact lengths required. 2. The project will generate some waste. …
Fixed Cost Items
- Often everything else can be lumped together into fixed cost items. For example, subcontractors are a common requirement which must be tracked under each task. But be careful to read the fine print or you might discover the hard way that it isn’t as “fixed cost” as you think. Contracts, by definition, identify a scope of work and a price associated with it, and in every industry that I kno…
Other Resources
- For larger projects, or where greater project management effort is justified, the following resources can also be used. 1. Organizational/Administration.The portion of the organization’s administration cost that the project must pay for. 2. Facilities. The purchase or rental of buildings to perform the work. 3. Financing costs.The interest cost for loans required to carry out the project. 4. Continge…
Example
- To build our log house we need to look at each individual task and determine the resources that are required. We would build a table that looks something like this: The other tasks for the log house might look like this: Therefore, once all of the individual tasks are added up the total cost for the log house is: