The idea of managing a project can seem like a daunting task, however, provided with the right tools, any project can achieve success. When undertaking any type of project management, there must be a working set of guidelines and objectives that must be followed, in order to guarantee success for that particular project. An essential element when entering into any type of project management is cost budgeting. To create an effective cost budgeting plan, a total budget for the entire project must first be established. To achieve this, each area of the project must be analyzed and given a particular cost estimate. Once that is done, the total sum of cost assessments, whether those costs are in individual projects or in work packages, are combined to establish a certain parameter to provide a working guideline for the budget. These guidelines are set in place so that the allotted costs are divvied up amongst the appropriate project needs. This will ensure that the budget goals are being accurately met. The process of cost budgeting is a simple, yet necessary process of any successful type of project management.
This term is defined in the 3rd edition of the PMBOK but not in the 4th.