Introduction:

With increasing competition and focus on corporate earnings, project and contract managers are held accountable, not just for achieving technical and scheduling goals, but also for meeting profitability targets and other cost-related measures.

This training course explores the financial metrics that are commonly used and also examines the less frequently thought of the financial impact of typical operating decisions and actions. Building on your competencies, you will examine the inner mechanics of how finance and accounting can impact your project.

Targeted Groups:

• Project Managers
• Project Management Staff
• Project Cost Controllers
• Finance Professionals
• Contracts Professionals

Course Objectives:

At the end of this course the participants will be able to: 

• Communicate more effectively with accounting and financial personnel
• Read, understand, and analyze accounting and financial data
• Expand your work in project scheduling and cost control to encompass additional financial metrics and tools
• Minimize project financial risk
• Develop and apply tools for comparing project financial returns
• Understand how finance often drives organizational decisions and evaluations of project performance.

Targeted Competencies:

• Financial awareness
• Project management
• Risk management
• Cost control
• Value concepts

Course Content:

Unit 1: Fundamentals of Finance:

• Financial accounting concepts
• Generally accepted accounting principles
• Reading and understanding financial statements
• Financial analysis
• Managerial accounting
• Business case consideration
• Cost vs. revenue
• Profitability measures
• ROS
• ROA/EVA
• ROE
• IRR
• Time value of money
• Discounted cash flows
• Direct VS indirect costs
• Fixed VS variable vs. semi-variable costs
• Break-even analysis

Unit 2: Contract Profitability - Pricing:

• Pricing strategy and tactics
• Profit planning
• Cost estimating
• Cost-based pricing
• Market-based pricing
• Value-based pricing
• Profit objective
• Market structure
• Follow-on business
• Risk
• Z score

Unit 3: Asset Management - Cash is King:

• Cash
• Timing of cash flows
• Accounts receivable
• Inventory
• Equipment
• Revenue recognition
• Financing arrangements

Unit 4: Terms & Conditions (Ts & Cs) - Best Prices:

• Value, cost, and risk
• Asset-friendly Ts and Cs
• Unfavorable Ts and Cs
• Metrics to evaluate

Unit 5: Cost Estimating What Works Best:

• Cost estimating methods
• Planning and scheduling
• Making sense of historical data
• Experience curves
• Relationship between cost estimating and pricing