Restoration Project Management - Project Planning and Management for Ecological Restoration - page 20

complete all activities on the project, not including materials used in the implementation phase
for site improvements.
The basis for the project cost estimate is the project deliverables and the activities required to
deliver them. Using the Gantt chart, the project manager assigns the work to the responsible proj-
ect team member. The project manager then estimates the resources (labor hours, days, weeks,
or months as appropriate) required to complete each activity on the schedule. Using the unit cost
per team member who will perform the activity (e.g., $85 per hour, or $13,600 per person month)
determines the cost to complete the activity. If the activity requires more than one labor type (e.g.,
civil engineer at $150 per hour and biologist at $115 per hour), the hours and the costs are split
accordingly. Once the total for each activity is determined, each activity on the project can be
summed to determine the total labor component (appendix 2).
For any given project, certain material goods will be required to complete the activities. Any
material costs associated with the delivery of an activity should be estimated and included in the
budget. During the planning and design phases, material costs typically include such items as
postage, photocopies, permits, plan reviews, mileage, and travel expenses. Typical office overhead
expenses are not normally included in the budget as a separate item but are factored into the
hourly rate charged for each labor type. All of the material costs required to complete each task
are totaled, and then all of the material costs are summed to reach a final total for material goods.
Other items—such as a contingency factor, profit, and project management costs—are usually
not included at this stage. These items, if required, are typically applied to the total project budget,
including the project improvement budget (discussed below).
At this time, it is important to calculate the estimated cost of labor for establishment period
maintenance, site maintenance, management activities, and any potential remedial actions. Fre-
quently omitted are the labor cost estimates for monitoring and reporting over the length of the
anticipated monitoring period. Projects requiring governmental permits frequently have specific
designated monitoring durations. It helps to seek guidance regarding the anticipated required
monitoring period from the regulatory agencies that will ultimately issue the permits required for
project approval. Project sponsors need to understand that they will be responsible for funding
these project components (i.e., maintenance, management, remedial actions, monitoring, and
reporting) after the project improvements have been installed up until such time when the regu-
latory agencies sign off on their permits.
DEVELOPING THE PROJECT IMPROVEMENT BUDGET
Determining the budget for actual project improvements is a fundamental aspect of project
management. Project managers are commonly asked to estimate the project improvement costs
long before any restoration planning work has been completed. Resist preparing these shotgun
estimates when you have little information to go by. Once you provide a budget estimate, you'll
have an uphill battle with your project sponsor to increase the budget in the event you underesti-
mated the work required. In some rare cases, when the proposed restoration effort is very well de-
fined, the risks are extremely low, and the type of work required is well understood, then ballpark
estimates such as cost per acre (per plant community or habitat type) might be useful. However,