Activity: Cost, Budget and Performance
When managing a project, you will constantly need to evaluate cost, budget and performance. This is important in order to be aware of how much the project has already cost the organisation, and how close you are to meeting or exceeding your budget. You will also need to evaluate whether the project and the project team are meeting their expectations. A budget template can help you effectively monitor your project's cost and budget. A budget template is often completed using a spreadsheet such as Microsoft Excel, and helps you organise the finances of your project by monitoring employee compensation, legal fees, professional fees, travel expenses, marketing expenses, office expenses and overhead costs. Using a budget template will help you keep your budget under control and provide financial information to your supervisor or other senior leaders at the organisation.
In your Resources for this unit, you will explore various ways to measure elements of a project. A technique you will explore is the Balanced Scorecard (BSC). The BSC helps measure organisational performance in relation to the organisation's strategic goals, incorporating financial measures as well as business processes. The BSC aims to find balance between internal and external measures; objective measures and subjective measures; and performance results and the drivers of future results. In the media for this unit, you can view a graphic of what a BSC entails. All of these tools and techniques can help a project manager effectively monitor and control projects, resulting in increased potential of project success.
To complete this Shared Activity:
- Review your scenario.
- Develop a budget template for the project in your scenario.
- Develop a BSC which includes your suggested KPIs in the four BSC categories for the project in your scenario.
- Submit to your group for feedback. In this unit's Individual Assignment, you will incorporate your group's feedback.
- Respond to your colleagues' budget templates and BSCs by expanding on, questioning or offering further support for their ideas.
Assignment: Balanced Scorecard and Budget Template
In your Shared Activity, you submitted your budget template and BSC to your group for feedback. For this Individual Assignment, you will work to improve your budget template and BSC.
To complete this Individual Assignment:
- Review the feedback your group provided on your budget template and BSC from the Shared Activity.
- Incorporate the feedback to improve your budget template and BSC.