When you think project management, you probably think of a product needing to be delivered on time (i.e. within schedule) and on budget. Those are just a few of the things a project manager manages, but they are very important. A project cannot take forever, and no organization has unlimited funds. At some point – market conditions changing or the project can no longer being cost justified, to name a couple – a project can be shut down.

You are probably thinking, “I know of some projects that should be nixed right now!” But that is probably not up to you to decide. The governing board makes those decisions, armed with accurate information provided by, guess who? You!

Thus far, you have confirmed what your project should accomplish. Next, you will learn about the funding situation and delivery expectations. How do you do that? You ask! As a project manager, you will quickly learn one of your main tools is asking questions.

The Time and Budget Relationship

Time and money do not always go together, yet they may if your governing board wants to get a project done before the company’s fiscal year ends and funding dries up. Verify budget and delivery expectations independently, then assess if everything passes a sanity check. Is the project supposed to be fully completed within three months? Does that budget provide for the right staff to accomplish that goal? Does the calendar fit with the number of requirements defined in the scope? Can we really build a system with that level of complexity with what we can afford? These are all important questions, and it is up to you to ask them. Special note: If a provided answer does not pass the smell test, ask for clarification.

A Redirect

Once you receive the budget amount and the due date, building the project begins, right? After all, you have the scope, budget, and due date, all things you are to manage. It must be time! Alas, poor Yorik, thy time hath not yet cometh. Have you tied together your requirements, budget, and schedule? Do they work in concert, or are there issues? (Remember those questions I posed in the paragraph above? Hmm….)

Takeaways

I have said little about the actual time and budget here, other than to provide the terms and a little bit of insight that they need to be managed together along with the project scope. The next post will provide a deeper dive into validating schedule and budget relative to the needs of the project. We will break down the project scope into deliverables that can be measured from a time and money perspective.