Projects go through phases as identified by Portny, Mantel, Meredith, Shafer, Sutton, Kramer (2008, p. 78),
- Conceive: an idea is born
- Define phase: a plan is developed
- Start phase: a team is formed
- Perform phase: the work is done
- Close phase: the project is ended
Once the plan is born then the project manager (PM) can begin to define the plan by develop a work breakdown structure (WBS). A WBS is a chart that will contain all of the tasks that will be completed for the project. For example if a PM were developing an online course then they would either do a mind map of each task and subtask that will need to be done. Another way a WBS could be done is with sticky notes of the tasks to be performed. I have listed two ways a WBS could be done but I am sure there are many more ways that a PM and their team could brainstorm the task to be completed; I think the most important thing here is that there is a visual representation of what has to be done. After the WBS is completed then the PM has to develop a budget.
A budget is the financial plans, for allocating organization resources to project activities (Portny et al.2008, p. 118). A budget for a project is harder to establish than a budget for regular organizational expenses according to Portny et al. (2008, p. 119).
So what happens when you are new to the PM game and now your organization wants you to develop a budget because face it everything in life cost; and there everything that goes on in the project has to be accounted for. The team members, SMEs, accountants, secretaries and anyone who works on the project has a salary and it has to be figured into the budget. If the PM is developing a course online for a client then the cost of developing the components of the course has to go into the budget.
So what information is out there to teach the novice PM instructional designer about allocating resources for a project because face it every hour cost the organization in employee salaries to develop virtual simulations, hard copy course materials, online assessments and quizzes.
Here are two resources I found to help begin to develop a budget and a timeline:
http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/costs.html#elearning
Estimating Cost and Time in Instructional Design is the title for the aforementioned website. I liked this site because it is for IDs who are considering developing an eLearning course. It has the time breakdowns for synchronous and asynchronous learning as far as number of hours it will take to develop a course. This website also has suggested hourly rates for IDs, SMEs and other team members.
http://michaelgreer.biz/?p=279
Estimating Instructional Development Time is an article written by Michael Greer who does a lot of project manager books and has this blog. I liked this blog by Mr. Greer because it gives tips about not trusting in doing ratios when it comes to beginning to budget your time on a project. He opens his post by stating that some of his students have suggested a 15:1, 30:1, 50:1 and 80:1 but he also states that the International Society for Performance Improvement has suggested that it could take up 1500:1 for course development. These ratios represent X hours to develop one hour of a course.
This article also takes into account other considerations like non-writing time; what type of course will the ID be developing. . .
These are just two websites out of many that I think would be helpful to the beginner PM in learning how to develop a resource allocation and budget for a project.
I welcome all suggestions and other helpful sites in the comment box.
Reference
Portny, S. E., Mantel, S. J. Meredith, J. R., Shafer, S. M., Sutton, M. M. &
Kramer, B. E. (2008). Project Management: Planning, scheduling,
and controlling projects.
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