what is the cost of a project and how one can calculate it
Project cost management Project cost management is traditionally a weak area of IT projects. IT project managers must acknowledge the importance of cost management and take responsibility for understanding basic cost concepts, cost estimating, budgeting, and cost control. Project managers must understand several basic principles of cost management to be effective in managing project cost. Important concepts include profits and profit margins, life cycle costing, cash flow analysis, sunk cost, and learning curve theory. Planning cost management involves determining the policies, procedures, and documentation that will be used for planning, executing, and controlling project cost. The main output of this process is a cost management plan. Estimating costs is a very important part of project cost management. There are several types of cost estimates, including rough order of magnitude (ROM), budgetary, and definitive. Each type of estimate is done during different stages of the project life cycle, and each has a different level of accuracy. Several tool and techniques can help you develop cost estimates, including analogous estimating, bottom-up estimating, parametric estimating, and computerized tools. Determining the budget involves allocating costs to individual work items over time. It is important to understand how particular organizations prepare budgets so estimates are made accordingly. Controlling cost includes monitoring cost performance, reviewing changes, and notifying project stakeholders of changes related to cost. Many basic accounting and finance principles relate to cost project management. Earned value management is an important method used for measuring project performance. Earned value management integrates scope, cost, and schedule information. Project portfolio management allows organization to collect and control an entire suite of projects or investments as one set of interrelated activities. Several software products can assists with project cost management. Enterprise project management software and portfolio management software can help managers evaluate data on multiple projects.[6]
Manhattan Project The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project was under the direction of Major General Leslie Groves of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Nuclear physicist Robert Oppenheimer was the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory that designed the actual bombs. The Army component of the project was designated the Manhattan District; "Manhattan" gradually superseded the official codename, Development of Substitute Materials, for the entire project. Along the way, the project absorbed its earlier British counterpart, Tube Alloys. The Manhattan Project began modestly in 1939, but grew to employ more than 130,000 people and cost nearly US $2 billion (about $27 billion in 2016[1] dollars). Over 90% of the cost was for building factories and to produce fissile material, with less than 10% for development and production of the weapons. Research and production took place at more than 30 sites across the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada.