Most projects have stakeholders that expect a return on their investment. For that to happen, the project must meet its deadline and stay within budget. To create a project budget, you first need to create a cost baseline so you can compare planned spend to actual spend.

Its with this cost baseline that you can make cost estimates for each task of your project and see if youre on target or overspending. Lets take a moment to fully understand this cost management basic concept and how you can use it to keep your project on track.

There's no getting around it: making sure there's enough money to complete the project plan is a key element of project management. Project cost management is a stressful part of most projects, especially when there seems to be extra cost involved at every turn!

Of course, budgeting is an important way to ensure success for your project - and you need to get your project budget as accurate as possible. One of the main outputs of the cost budgeting process is a cost baseline. But what exactly is a cost baseline - and how do you use it?

In this article, we'll discuss what a cost baseline is, how it differs from a budget, and how you can use it to see if your project is performing as well as expected What is the cost baseline?