Exam 8: Cost Estimation and Budgeting

It took 66 hours of analysis to complete the first phase,but the second phase was done in 61 hours.If this learning rate continues,then the 8ᵗʰ analysis should take a mere:

Direct costs are those clearly assigned to the aspect of the project that generated the cost.

Estimates based on the assumption that historical data can be used as a frame of reference for current estimates are:

Rank the four different types of cost estimates from most to least accurate and explain what the inputs are to each type.

A project manager is estimating costs on her video game development project.She utilizes total costs from a similar project that was completed last year to estimate the costs on her current project.This is an example of:

The term expedited cost has the same meaning as crashing cost in the project management milieu.

An order of magnitude estimate is usually more accurate than a ballpark estimate.

What are function points and how do they work?

The new artisanal greenhouse would require 700 empty wine bottles be embedded in a frame made of clay and straw.The builder,a man with too much time on his hands,had determined that each time a bottle was added to the structure it would take 30 minutes of labor at $7.50 per hour in the blazing sun.An activity-based costing of the entire artisanal greenhouse revealed that the total labor cost would be:

Which of these indirect costs is typically classified as a selling or administrative cost?

What learning rate is being demonstrated if the first unit takes 25 hours and the seventh unit takes 22 hours to complete?

The gentleman farmer and surrealist aficionado commissioned a mural on barn that was an homage to Salvador Dalí's Persistence of Memory with a few farm animals included.The project would require the services of a senior muralist,a junior muralist,and a gofer.The senior muralist has an annual salary of $120,000,the junior muralist draws an annual salary of $75,000,and the gofer makes $30,000 per year.It is anticipated that the project will require 25 hours of senior muralist time,40 hours of junior muralist time,and 60 hours of gofer time.Overhead charges vary by position;the gofer has a lower overhead rate (30%)than the two muralist positions (50%).Use 2080 hours as an estimate for the number of hours in a year and a 15% factor for personal time.What is the total direct labor cost for the project?

What is a time-phased budget and how does it help a project manager control costs?

How are top-down and bottom-up budgets created? What advantages does each approach hold over the other?

"If anything can go wrong it often will" is an articulation of:

There was no way that the study tour to Italy could cost only $1500 for 14 days and 13 nights and include all transportation,meals and hotels,but the smarmy professor knew that students would balk at a higher advertised price.Once they were thousands of miles away from home in a country where none of them spoke the language it would be easier to tell them about unanticipated charges and approach the more realistic price of $3500 per person.This type of:

The 1974 model Eldorado is a three-ton behemoth with a 500-cubic-inch engine that is long on style but short on gas mileage.During its five-year development process no one could possibly have anticipated that gas prices would go through the roof in 1973,making it far more expensive to operate and subsequently less attractive to a gas-price-conscious public.Design engineers scrambled to change the car in the last few months leading up to its debut,adding a slimmed down version with a smaller engine.All of the design overtime meant that the project budget took a big hit though,thanks to:

A budgeting method that assigns costs first to activities and then to projects based on each project's use of resources is:

After years of tinkering and reverse engineering initiatives,Kimray had finally unlocked the secrets of the Beta tape format.A quick trip to the rental store was an epiphany for company leadership when they realized that only a handful of Beta tapes were available;the rest of the world had adopted the VHS format seemingly overnight.Now they would have to buy a few of those newfangled VHS machines to see how they ticked.The contingency funds that management had set aside would be put to good use on this:

The analogous estimation method is a bottom-up estimating approach.