The Precise Estimation of Development Project Cost and its Life Cycle

Abstract

Development plays a significant role in working out national projects in the field of house-building aimed at providing high-quality and affordable housing for the population of Russia. The key indicator for the development project is its cost, which affects both affordability for the population and finance and economic figures of the developer. Therefore, the system of cost management in the development company shall be formalized on the basis of design parameters, characterizing the project cost at all stages of the life cycle. The article proposes to use four interconnected indicators, the precise estimation of the project cost is assumed to be the principle one in the research. The authors worked out the model of development project cost management with due regard to stages of its life cycle, showed key events and relevant control points to assess precision, investigated and described methods of cost estimation at certain stages of the project life cycle (PLC). On the basis of real development projects they analyzed precision of cost estimation by stages of life cycle and plotted the graph ‘precision funnel’. The general positive dynamics in precise cost estimation was discovered, however the range of indicator incoherence would not allow us to adopt universal recommendations on its appraisal. The analysis showed the necessity to improve precision of cost estimation at early stages of project life cycles, which impacts the efficiency of the development project.

Keywords

• project life cycle
• project documents
• ‘precision funnel’