ISP Business Tools ...cont'd

By Michael Patenaude
Global X Change

Copyright © 1999 Global X Change, Michael Patenaude.

This document may be used in its unmodified form by non-profit organizations and others working for international development.

Introduction   |   Cash Flow Forecast   |   Project Estimating   |
Service and Product Differentiation   |   Contract Checklist   |   Marketing Plan Template

4.2 Project Estimating Template

This template is intended to provide a tool to estimate the budget for a professional services project. It is very difficult to develop a template such as this that takes into account the wide variety of local variations in methodologies, approaches and needs. The template is intended to be a starting point, or a checklist, and it is expected it will be modified as required. Not all activities will be performed on every project, and other activities may have to be added.

Using the Project Estimating Template

The basic idea behind the estimating template is that most costs associated with a project are labour costs, however, some provision has also been made for identifying costs involved with equipment and supplies.

The project methodology imbedded on the template is a "phased" approach. This means a project has a start, phases of activity, and a completion. By breaking down a project into its component parts it is likely to be more manageable. Each phase has activities, that are performed by personnel in different roles. Their time can be estimated and rolled up to phase and project totals. Factors for contingency (i.e., unpredictable events) are added in.

By filling in the various estimated times and costs (for resources other than human resources) on an activity by activity basis, the spreadsheet calculates cost roll ups by resource, activity, and phase. Note that "retail" pricing (e.g., per diems charged to a customer) is used in the spreadsheet, not actual costs (i.e., employee salary and benefits), thereby providing a price to the customer. The spreadsheet assumes that per diems already account for all costs associated with running the business such as salaries, benefits and overhead. Taxes are not included in the spreadsheet and must be added as appropriate.

Project Estimating Template : (download file-  pdf  |  word/97  |  rtf   )
  

* this is only a portion of the the actual table