Plan Cost Management

Defines how costs will be estimated, budgeted, managed, and controlled, captured in the cost management plan. It sets the financial ground rules before any numbers are produced.

Process Group Planning Knowledge Area Project Cost Management

Plan Cost Management establishes the policies and procedures for the project’s money: units of measure, levels of precision and accuracy, control thresholds, and the rules for earned value measurement. The output is the cost management plan — guidance, not the estimates themselves.

Plan Cost Management: key inputs and outputs — The key inputs feeding Plan Cost Management and the deliverables it produces — full ITTOs are listed below.

Like the other plan-the-plan processes, it is brief but sets expectations: how variances will be measured, and at what point a cost slip triggers action.

Common pitfalls. Skipping it and improvising cost control; no agreed control thresholds, so it is unclear when an overrun matters; and a level of rigor mismatched to the project’s size and risk.

Inputs, Tools & Techniques, and Outputs

Inputs

Project charter
Project management plan
Enterprise environmental factors
Organizational process assets

Tools & Techniques

Expert judgment
Data analysis
Meetings

Outputs

Cost management plan