Over budget is fine

"When it comes to project finance, there are only two states that raise concerns in my mind," said my Boss to S, our newbie PM.

"One - you come in exactly on budget. That says you are being very creative with the figures and are managing the budget not your project. And Two - you come in under budget."

Wait a minute - under budget doesn't concern you?

Yep. In an organisation like ours, in which project costs comprise solely the man-day rate applicable to the people working on the project, if you get the number of people right and the duration of the project right, you should come in pretty darn close to your budget. Easy.

If you come in under budget, you have over-estimated. If you are a little over-budget (within contingency), you have done your job. If you are a lot over-budget, you didn't do your job properly, because you did not get authorisation for the additional spend - change control, dummy!

The 'fun' part of managing IT projects around here is in dealing with all the minor crises that inevitably arise that cause your beautifully crafted plan to gradually evolve into something virtually unrecognisable from the version that was originally approved.