Earned Value Project Management, Second Edition

Chapter 7. Estimate and Budget Project Resources to Form Control Account Plans (CAPs)

Once the technical requirements of the project have been properly defined, and all of the specified work planned and scheduled, the next logical step in establishing the project’s baseline is to forecast how much each task likely will cost. The required resources must be estimated, quantified, and then specifically authorized by the project manager in the form of official project budgets. A cost estimate is only an estimate until the project manager approves it in the form of a budget.

These initial steps are required in order to employ the earned value concept on a new project. (Important Point: These steps are no different than the initial effort required to ...