From Guesswork to Grounded Numbers: A Project Cost Estimating Training Course (Online / Remote)
1Summary
A project that opens 30% over its approved budget rarely fails because costs rose mid-way — it fails because the original number was never grounded in real data to begin with. Project Cost Estimating exists precisely to close that gap: turning scope, resource rates, historical records, and reasonable assumptions into a number stakeholders can actually defend.
The Project Cost Estimating Techniques training course, delivered by Arab British Fellowship Training Academy as part of its Project Management Training Courses, walks through practical methods for building, testing, and defending cost estimates across the project lifecycle — from early cost breakdowns through resource costing, budgeting, forecasting, and the estimating software that supports it all.
2Objectives and target group
Who Should Attend?
- Project Managers, Coordinators, and Project Controls Professionals
- Cost Estimators, Cost Engineers, and Quantity Surveyors
- Planning and Scheduling Professionals
- Procurement, Commercial, and Finance staff supporting project delivery
- Construction and Engineering Project Professionals
- Anyone responsible for project budgeting or cost forecasting
What You'll Gain
- Build a cost breakdown structure straight from project scope and activities
- Select and apply the right estimating method — analogous, parametric, bottom-up, or three-point
- Price labour, materials, equipment, and subcontractor costs realistically
- Convert estimates into approved budgets with defensible cost baselines
- Forecast expenditure, track variances, and update projections as work progresses
- Apply contingency and sensitivity analysis to estimates built on incomplete data
- Use estimating software and templates to speed up and standardise the process
3Course Content
Module 1: When the Number Is Wrong From Day One
- Why cost estimates fail before a project even starts
- The cost estimation lifecycle and where confidence gets lost
- Estimating inputs, assumptions, and their role in accuracy
- Common estimating errors and how they compound
Module 2: Building the Cost Breakdown from Scope to Structure
- Identifying project cost categories
- Direct, indirect, fixed, and variable costs
- Overhead allocation
- Developing a Cost Breakdown Structure from historical data
Module 3: Choosing the Right Estimating Method — and the Tools Behind It
- Analogous, parametric, bottom-up, and three-point estimating
- Expert judgement and historical data analysis
- Selecting the technique that fits the project stage
- Estimating software, digital cost databases, and automated calculations
Module 4: Pricing People, Materials, and Subcontractors
- Identifying project resources
- Labour rate calculations and productivity assumptions
- Material and equipment costing
- Subcontractor and supplier costs, resource loading, and allocation
Module 5: Connecting the Estimate to the Project Plan
- Linking scope, activities, resources, and costs
- Work Breakdown Structure and cost relationships
- Activity-based and time-phased cost estimating
- Coordinating schedules and cost estimates
Module 6: Turning Estimates into Budgets Leadership Approves
- Converting estimates into project budgets
- Establishing cost baselines and control accounts
- Contingency reserves and allowances
- Budget approval, documentation, and managing changes
Module 7: Forecasting, Variance, and Living with Uncertainty
- Forecasting future expenditure and Estimate at Completion concepts
- Actual versus estimated costs and variance analysis
- Sensitivity and scenario-based estimating
- Managing incomplete or unreliable cost data and improving estimate confidence
Module 8: Practical Estimating Workshop
- Building a complete project cost estimate end to end
- Selecting suitable estimating methods and preparing budgeting inputs
- Applying estimating software and conducting cost forecasting
- Reviewing, validating, and presenting the final estimate