This course contains the use of artificial intelligence.

A project that finishes on time and over budget is rarely a cost overrun. Usually it is an estimate that was wrong on the day it was made. Here are 315 tools to build estimates and control that hold: 188 ready-to-use templates, procedures, checklists, formulas, matrices and AI prompts, 100 models and methods, 17 services shown on screen and 10 working files.

Open a lecture, take the tool, rebuild one real cost estimate with it.

Where project budgets actually break

The estimate covered the visible work and missed the overheads. People were costed at headcount rather than real availability, so a person who spends 40% of their time on the project was budgeted as if they spent all of it. A variable line such as cloud, tools, licences or contractors grew quietly because nobody owned it. And the contingency was a round number that felt reasonable. Then the variance report explains what happened rather than why, and the next project repeats it.

What changes after this course

Your project budget is connected to the company's financial model. Assumptions are written down where budget arguments are settled months later. Overheads, variable costs and the people line are costed before approval, contingency has a basis, and a deviation is escalated while it can still be fixed.

What is inside: 315 tools, counted lecture by lecture

You do not have to take this number on trust. Open any lecture and read its description: every tool inside is listed there by name.

• 50 downloadable resources: the lecture presentations plus 10 working files, including the project cost readout workbook, the rightsizing analysis workbook, the unit economics calculator and the 90-day FinOps implementation workbook
• 188 ready-to-use tools inside the presentations:
• 46 templates and sample documents: business case, work breakdown structure, labor effort calculation, project progress report
• 37 step-by-step procedures and workflows: bottom-up and top-down budgeting, operational cash flow forecasting, project risk management, project rebaselining
• 26 checklists: project feasibility, project plan, project risk factors, deliverable quality
• 25 formulas and metric sets: earned value metrics, financial KPIs, HR automation cost-benefit calculation, cloud optimization metrics
• 24 scorecards, rubrics and matrices: risk probability-impact matrix, RACI matrix, benefits cost-effectiveness matrix, cloud pricing options comparison matrix
• 18 question lists and scripts: overhead budgeting, project initiation decisions, WBS approach selection, lessons learned review
• 12 ready AI prompts: idle resource audit, Savings Plan strategy, cost allocation model, cloud cost anomaly analysis
• 100 models and methods explained with examples: rolling budget, cost-benefit analysis, critical path method, PMBOK 7
• 17 services shown on screen, including Microsoft Project, Workday, HiBob, Notion and Airtable

Where the tools are

• The financial model behind any project (4 sections, 35 tools). Efficiency metrics, process economics, the strategy pyramid, budgeting and Lean.
• Budgeting method and costing the work (2 sections, 53 tools). What to budget, links to strategy, people, training, tools and overheads.
• The project budget (4 sections, 98 tools). Charter, business case, scope and cost sources, the three budget stages, contingency and spend control.
• Variable cost control (2 sections, 78 tools). Reading and allocating a cloud bill, optimisation, unit economics and a 90-day implementation.
• The people line (2 sections, 83 tools). FTE, workload, demand forecasting and the full cost of a role.

Who is teaching

I am Mike, the #1 HR instructor on Udemy, with 1,800,000+ course enrollments from 170,000 students, and the author of about 200 books on Amazon. I built the people system at Preply as it became a unicorn and worked at Wargaming, iDeals and Alfa-Bank across 20 years in HR. I hold PHRi, SHRM-CP and HCI sHRBP certifications and represent HRCI in Eastern Europe. I am also a founder and lead the strategy of my own academy.

At the STB TV channel every programme on air was a project with its own budget and a budget per episode, and the channel had to decide how to allocate administrative overheads across projects: by cost, by the revenue a project generated, or by negotiation. Reserves were always spent there, so the company removed them: if you wanted to spend above the plan, you had to find savings elsewhere in your own budget.

How to use the course

Start with the project cost readout workbook and the budgeting method sections, then go to the variable cost or people line sections your project needs. Section and lecture titles show how many tools are inside, and each lecture description lists them by name.

What is included

• 42 lectures across 15 sections, 21 hours
• 50 downloadable resources: lecture presentations and ten working files
• 315 tools across the lessons, including 17 services shown on screen
• Lifetime access to all materials
• Active instructor support in the Q&A section
• A Udemy Certificate of Completion

Where to start

Take your current project estimate and mark every line that is costed at headcount instead of real availability. Enrol now and start your first lesson today.