Project Time and Cost Management

Whatever may be the purpose of an information technology (IT) project, cost and time management are of particular importance in delivering quality projects. Proper costing and budgeting ensure that IT projects are adequately funded in procurement, development efforts, workforce involvement, and remunerations. Underfunding would not ensure efficient project delivery and lack of proper cost controls would result in overshooting the budget, leading to system-wide disruptions and consequences. It is essential to note that funding for any IT project is almost always scarce and inelastic and should be appropriately allocated and managed. Similarly, most IT projects are time bound. Late project delivery can cause the failure of the entire system. Any quality IT products must take due consideration of timing and budgeting. Various stages of development and procurement must be adequately planned, managed, and controlled. The IT project manager must correctly estimate a whole gamut of factors to achieve a cost-effective and successful IT project implementation. These factors include cost, efforts, scheduling, staffing, work breakdown structure (WBS), budget, milestones, and IT system development and maintenance phases. This chapter shall examine the work breakdown structure, project estimation, effort estimation, cost estimation, and resource estimation. The chapter shall also consider various models related to IT project management. Furthermore, we shall discuss Software Engineering metrics, project schedule development, budget, and earned value management.