Project budget
Main contents of project budget
Project budget is a necessary step in drafting project plan, and it is also one of the most common things that GIS project managers do. Generally speaking, there are seven kinds of expenditure on GIS projects. The expenditure directly related to a certain GIS project is called direct project expenditure, otherwise it is called indirect project expenditure。
Manpower cost: it is the cost of owning and using human resources to accomplish tasks, including the wages and benefits of employees. Manpower cost belongs to direct project cost。
Expenses for materials and office supplies: they include the purchase of various office supplies, books and drawings, etc。
Equipment cost: it mainly includes the purchase or lease of computer hardware。
Software cost: the purchase or lease of computer software。
Software and hardware maintenance costs。
Internal service costs: they are the maintenance costs of some departments within the organization, which indirectly support the operation of the project and the whole organization. In addition, it also includes insurance, office rental, communication costs and so on。
Other expenses: they are not belonging to any of the above categories, including travel expenses, training, etc。
In addition to the direct cost of manpower, all of the above belong to the indirect cost, which can be estimated by multiplying the manpower cost by a weight value。
Method of project budget
When carrying out the budget of GIS project, we should consider all kinds of expenses synthetically. There are four main methods to carry out the budget: up-tracing method, down-tracing method, unit price method and budgeting method according to the cost of project participants。
Backtracking method
Backtracking method is suitable for determining the final total quotation according to the project task. Fig. 15-7 shows the steps of budgeting by using backtracking method。
Figure 15-7: Project budget using backtracking
The following problems need to be paid attention to when using the method of backtracking to budget：
The scope of the project needs to be fully understood, because the method is based on the content and scope of the project to start and define, determine the scope too large or too small, it will have a great impact on the total quotation. If the boundary of the range is ambiguous, some constraints can be used。
The division of project tasks. If the division of project task is basically correct, then the total quotation will not appear too big deviation. In task partitioning and task workload estimation, we can refer to similar work in the past。
The royalties and profits account for a considerable share of the total quotation. In the United States, human resources, office expenses and corporate profits are account for about one-third of all GIS projects。
Downward tracing method
The downward tracing method is applicable to the situation where the total budget has been determined, and the specific costs of each division of tasks are determined. In practical work, it can be combined with backtracking method to adjust the budget plan, so that the results can take into account not only the total cost of the project, but also the specific task workload。
Unit price method
Unit price method refers to the budgetary method based on a single unit of a project, which is suitable for projects with fixed process and large repeatability. The most typical project using unit price method is map digitization. For example, 500 topographic maps should be digitized. After examining the content, quality and expected data of most topographic maps, the average time and cost required for each topographic map can be calculated according to the final digitization process and accuracy requirements, and then the total project cost can be obtained。
Method of budgeting based on the cost of project participants
Budgeting based on the cost of project participants depends on the type of personnel used in the project. Usually this method is used in the case of senior technicians. This method pays attention to the time for each person to participate in the project, without strictly defining the task of the project。
Like schedule, it is necessary to maintain a certain degree of flexibility in order to cope with various problems in the process of project budget。