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7 - PROJECT COST MANAGEMENT

• Published commercial information. Resource cost rate information is often available from commercial
databases that track skills and human resource costs, and provide standard costs for material and
equipment. Published seller price lists are another source of information.

7.2.1.7 organizational Process Assets

Described in Section 2.1.4. The organizational process assets that influence the Estimate Costs process include,
but are not limited to:
• Cost estimating policies,

• Cost estimating templates,
• Historical information, and

• Lessons learned.

7.2.2 Estimate costs: tools and techniques

7.2.2.1 Expert Judgment

Expert judgment, guided by historical information, provides valuable insight about the environment and
information from prior similar projects. Expert judgment can also be used to determine whether to combine methods
of estimating and how to reconcile differences between them.

7.2.2.2 Analogous Estimating

Analogous cost estimating uses the values such as scope, cost, budget, and duration or measures of scale such
as size, weight, and complexity from a previous, similar project as the basis for estimating the same parameter
or measurement for a current project. When estimating costs, this technique relies on the actual cost of previous,
similar projects as the basis for estimating the cost of the current project. It is a gross value estimating approach,
sometimes adjusted for known differences in project complexity.

Analogous cost estimating is frequently used to estimate a value when there is a limited amount of detailed
information about the project, for example, in the early phases of a project. Analogous cost estimating uses
historical information and expert judgment.

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