In today’s climate of global competition, tight financing, and demanding clientele, top performance is essential for business survival. Projects are an integral part of any business, and include construction, information technology, manufacturing, petrochemical, and others. Too many of these projects suffer from cost overruns and schedule slippages. This program presents practical tips and state-of-the-art tools and techniques for the successful completion of complex projects.

By the end of this course, delegates will be able to:

· Consider the use of activity based budgeting (ABB), compared with traditional budgeting methods, as a solution to the problem of the over and under-costing of products and services

· Explain different types of budgeting methods used in business and the bases of using each one

· Develop and effectively control budgets

· Make decisions under uncertainty and risk on budgeting

· Generate alternative plans to deal with critical risks on budget

· Appreciate the level and nature of the information needed to develop a project budget

· Develop effective performance monitoring and control system on schedules

· Understand the different types of planning used to accurately and progressively develop project schedule

· The effect of project risk mitigation on project's schedule and how to reduce it

· Generate different plans to deal with critical risks on schedule

· Make decisions under uncertainty and risk on schedules

Project Engineers, Project Assistants, Design Engineers, Lead Project Engineers, Senior Project Engineers, Project Management Advisors, Civil Engineers, Projects and Facility Engineers & Personnel, Program managers, Civil Engineers & Facilities Personnel, Project Team Leaders, Managers, Coordinators, Administrators responsible for managing projects, Technical professionals and engineers moving into project leadership, all those responsible for making significant decisions concerning costs, plans and budgets for large and complex projects, Project Managers, Project Cost Estimators, Cost Controllers, Project Planners, Contract Professionals, and Project Procurement Staff will find this course highly relevant, anyone involved in project initiation, project estimating and budgeting, and development as well as critical assessment of project cost proposals in client and contracting companies, financial managers, senior accountants, accounting & budgeting personnel, those new to the field take away a good multi-discipline understanding of the issues involved in the program works

Planning and Budgetary Control Systems

· Budget, motivation and responsibility accounting

· The use of cost management information

· Creating cost-aware organizations

· Product vs. Period costs

· Direct and Indirect Costs

· Cost behavior: Fixed and Variable Costs

· Budgeting as a Management and Organizational Control System

· Problems and Examples

Different Approaches to Costing

· Absorption (Full) vs. Variable costing

· Under-costing and over-costing: the consequences for profitability

· How to refine a costing system?

· Activity-based costing (ABC) and cost-management

· Activity Centers

· Cost hierarchy & Cost drivers

· Cost Centers

· Responsibility Centers

· Revenue Centers

· Linking resources, activities and management

· Introducing Activity-based management (ABM)

· Activity Based Budgeting (ABB)

· Linkages between ABM and ABC – monitoring value creation

· Problems, Case Study and Examples

Different Approaches to Budgeting

· Fixed and flexed budget (static and flexible budget)

· Rolling budget

· Policy, Planning and Budgeting System (PPBS)

· Zero-base Budgeting

· Activity based budgeting

· Master budget

· From costing to budget: interpreting variances (variance analysis)

· Integrate continuous improvement into variance analysis

· Measuring yield, mix and quantity effects

Advanced Topics in Projects Scheduling

· Task Characteristics and Duration Assessment

· Planning and Scheduling Methods

· Critical Path Scheduling

· Resource Allocation Methods

· Time-Cost Tradeoff

· Lead Lag Scheduling

· Critical Chain scheduling

· Effective status and review meetings

Advanced Project Management Technologies

· Advanced Scheduling

· Parametric Estimating

· Solid Modeling and CAD standards

· Personal Digital Assistants

· Discrete Event Simulation

· Geographic Information Systems (GIS)

· Global Positioning System (GPS)

Project Planning

· Scope definition

· Developing the Work Breakdown Structure

· Basic rules of estimating and Types of estimates

· Estimating methodologies

· Identifying costs

· Time-controlled estimates vs. resource-limited estimates

Scheduling the Work

· Network scheduling

· Use of the Gantt chart and Milestones

· Making up time in the schedule

· Procurement planning

· Communication planning

· Quality planning

COURSE LOCATIONS