How can project costs be estimated?

Question

What is the best way to estimate the costs (both direct and indirect) of the project? Is there a standard procedure (that will work across the board) to do this?

Is it strictly the job of the project manager to do the cost estimation?

Answer 1

The best way to estimate a project is to create a Work Breakdown Structure or WBS, a hierarchical listing of all the tasks and activities necessary to complete the project.  The work packages of the WBS need to be sufficiently small such that they can be estimated for time, costs, and resources.

The project manager facilitates the WBS and estimation, however should be looking to the project team to supply the actual numbers.