Project Scheduling, Cost Planning & Value Engineering Skills

Introduction

This course focuses on how to deliver reliable cost and schedule estimates during the early concept and planning stages of a proposed project and will explore the Value Engineering (VE) concept: a creative, organized approach with the objective of offering project stakeholders an opportunity to optimize project value, reduce life-cycle costs, address financial issues, and eliminate unnecessary costs. The whole course adopts a systematic step-by-step methodology to support the initiation, planning, execution, monitoring and control, and closure of projects. It covers the key elements of roles and responsibilities, planning techniques, forming and managing a multi-disciplinary project team to generate solutions and recommend alternatives; capturing stakeholder’s requirements and expectations; developing conceptual cost estimates and models; undertaking life-cycle costing analysis, and producing a high-level project plan to guide project execution and control. Practical applications are covered in detail, along with presentations of case studies designed to help participants master the course materials.

This training course will feature:

• Gaining knowledge of techniques used in project estimating, from the conceptual stage to the final detailed estimate
• Understanding the different types of estimates used to confidently and progressively estimate project costs and schedule
• Identifying risk sources and minimize their impact with and without the contingency
• Developing effective team management, performance monitoring, and control systems
• An integrated approach to scope, time, resources and cost management into a dynamic and manageable model

Objectives

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

• Manage and mitigate schedule, cost, scope, and resource risks associated with the project
• Develop a project recovery plan for budget and schedule overruns
• Identify value mismatches through the ratio of whole life costing.
• Capture & incorporate stakeholders’ input in the development of the project charter & plan.
• Know the fundamental concepts of Value Engineering and Analysis

Training Methodology

This is an interactive course. There will be open question and answer sessions, regular group exercises and activities, videos, case studies, and presentations on best practices. Participants will have the opportunity to share with the facilitator and other participants on what works well and not so well for them, as well as work on issues from their own organizations. The online course is conducted online using MS-Teams/ClickMeeting.

Who Should Attend?

This course is suitable for a wide range of professionals but will greatly benefit:

• Those who have a role in various projects such as cost estimators, project schedulers, project designers, project planner, contracts professionals, project procurement and purchasing staff, and project control and business services professionals who have the responsibility for preparing cost/schedule estimates and project proposals in client and contracting companies.
• Those who are interested in knowing more about estimation and control in a project environment.
• Anyone involved in project initiation, engineering design, and critical assessment of projects
• All those responsible for making significant decisions concerning plans and budgets for large and complex projects
• Project or Program Sponsors, Project Managers, Cost Estimators, Cost Controllers, Engineers, Designers, and Project Staff
• All those aspiring to deliver better value in all sectors of the economy from major projects in construction, manufacturing, petrochemical, healthcare, education legal and public services

Course Outline

Day 1: Project Estimating Basics

• Basic Project Management definitions
• Triple Constraints – Time, Cost, Scope
• Project Selection Methods
• Defining the Project Scope
• Cost & Schedule Estimation, cost Budgeting & Control
• Project Schedule Planning and Critical Path Method 

Developing Project Budget & Schedule Control

• Project management inputs to cost budgeting
• Resource Requirements
• Direct & Indirect Project Costs
• Planning and Scheduling Limited Resources
• Options for Accelerating the Schedule
• Crashing the Schedule - How?

Day 2: Managing the Risk

• Risk Identification, Analysis & Management
• Contingency Reserve
• PERT, Probability and Standard Deviation Formulae
• Network Activity Risk Profiles
• Application: Estimating Project Duration
• Project Risk Strategies

Measuring Project Performance

• Balanced Project Schedule without Buffers (Finish-Start) and Inserting Buffers
• Comparison of Unbalanced with Balanced Schedules
• Measuring Planned Progress on Schedule
• Risk distribution in contracting
• Actual Progress and Work Conditions
• Managing Variable Conditions

Day 3: Managing and Recovering Project Estimates

• Schedule Variances & Cost Variances
• Progress Control Charts - Trend Analysis
• Schedule and Cost Variance Forecasting
• Schedule and Cost Recovery Analysis
• Schedule and Cost Recovery Plan
• Project Recovery Baselines and Controls

Framework for Applying Value Engineering in Projects

• Defining Value and Value Engineering concepts and principles
• How and when is Value Engineering applied?
• Project definition through stakeholder analysis and management
• Team player styles
• Identifying relationships between Value, Cost and Worth
• Overview of Different Value Engineering Phases 

Day 4: The Function Analysis Phase - Expressing Project Functional Needs and Constraints

• The Information Phase – steps and procedures
• Developing Value Engineering Job Plan
• Defining project constraints
• What is function analysis and Function-Cost-Worth Analysis
• Developing FAST Diagrams to identify critical project components
• Cross-Functional Project Team Approach

 The Creative Phase - Inspiring Creativity in Your Project Team

• Creativity and Creative thinking within the project environment
• Creative thinking techniques
• Reaching consensus and leveraging the power of project team collaboration
• Project risk perception and identification
• Identifying priorities through paired comparison
• Output of the Creative Phase

Day 5: The Evaluation Phase -Making Informed Project Decisions

• Project evaluation methods
• Performing project risk and scenario analyses
• Life-cycle costing techniques
• Incremental benefit-cost analysis for project evaluation
• Effective Decision-making in project environment
• The output of the Evaluation Phase

The Planning and Reporting Phases -Getting Results through Effective Communication

• Develop and assess VE proposals to optimize project value
• Action planning roles and responsibilities
• Reporting VE findings to Senior Management and project stakeholders
• Incorporating VE into the early project phases
• Integrating VE with Continuous Improvement Techniques