Estimating Costs and Allocating Resources

The first resource I found that would be useful in estimating the costs, effort and/or activity durations associated with ID projects was Big Dog & Little Dog’s Performance Juxtaposition blog.  This blog gives a plethora of information on estimating costs and time in instructional design.  Literature is given and interactive templates to calculate budgeting for any area of developing a project is provided on this site. In addition to all of this information the site also gives information on brain storming, agile learning design, blended learning, books, cognition, design and development.   Dr. Achong stated in Practitioner Voices:  Resource Challenges that IDs must think of all the projects that will suck up your time that have nothing to do with the project at hand (Laureate Education, Inc., n.d.).  Just at Dr. Stolovich stated in Creating a Resource Allocation, IDs should create a contingency budget of 20% that no one knows about.  The form in the tools section of this blog made room for “other” which can be the contingency funds.

Once you click on the link scroll to the end of the blog page to “Tools” and click on the link provided.  This interactive tool was very easy to use because the template is already set up and calculates the data you enter.  Some adjustments may have to be made in column C to make it specific to your particular project.  Remember to click on the other pages at the bottom of the excel spreadsheet to create your training estimates and notes.  This is a great tool and it is very easy to use.

Picture Credit - Picture Credit - http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/costs.html

The second resource I found is from Ridge View Media, Cook, J. (2010), How to Estimate Training Time and Costs.  This site was a bit different from the previous site I chose.  I did not find interactive information where I could input my data to make the budgeting chart or timeline my own.  Although there are several links from this site to other sites that give valuable information on estimating time and costs with different projects.  This site can be used mainly for informational purposes.  Although very interesting blog posts I would use this site to create the planning phase of a project.   

Picture Credit - http://ridgeviewmedia.com/blog/2010/05/how-to-estimate-trainingtime-and-costs/

The most helpful information I found on the sites were very different.  In the first site, Estimating Costs and Time in Instructional Design I found the interactive tools to be the most helpful especially for the upcoming project that is due.  The most helpful piece to the second site, How to Estimate Training Time and Costs, was all the information from various different professionals on how to estimate costs and time when planning for a project.  One gave interactive tools and the other gave information which I can use in the future to estimate and allocate costs in instructional design.  What I have found most challenging about estimating activity durations and resources costs is the amount of time it takes to do such a tedious task.  Trying to make sure you have enough time and funds allocated for the tasks at hand is more difficult than I thought and it has become a bit overwhelming.  While project budgets will always have an element of uncertainty, project managers can prepare for common types of change and revise budgets accordingly (Portny, et al., 2008).

Picture Credit

bwalker2.blogspot.com

References

Clark, D. (2010). Estimating costs and time in instructional design.  Retrieved from http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/costs.html.

Cook, J. (2010).  How to estimate training time and costs.  Retrieved from http://ridgeviewmedia.com/blog/2010/05/how-to-estimate-trainingtime-and-costs/.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (n.d.). Creating a resource allocation [Video webcast].

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (n.d.). Practitioner voices: Resource challenges [Video webcast].

Portny, S. E., Mantel, S. J., Meredith, J. R., Shafer, S. M., Sutton, M. M., & Kramer, B. E. (2008). Project management: Planning, scheduling, and controlling projects. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley.