Q: During which project Management process group are budget forecasts created?

A. Monitoring and controlling

B. Planning

C. Initiating

D. Executing

Answer:

Control Costs

Budget forecasts are an output of Control Costs, which is part of monitoring and controlling.

WBS - 80 hours is a small enough increment of work to be able to rack progress against and still have accurate data.

The project manager can use information about project progress to help control the schedule and costs and to assess whether the project is on track through earned value measurement (described later in this section). Some project managers use alternative means of determining progress that don’t rely on earned value measurement, such as asking team members for an estimate of percent complete for each work package or activity. On projects where work is not objectively measured, the estimate the team members provide is simply a guess. The method of asking for percent complete is time-consuming and generally a waste of time when the estimate is a guess, because it does not provide a realistic estimate of the project’s progress.
Another way to track progress without using earned value measurement is by accurately measuring deliverable completion (evaluating how much has been done to complete the deliverable based on the work package and the time and cost estimates). Typically with a WBS, 80 hours is a small enough increment of work to be able to track progress against and still have accurate data. For the exam, remember that projects planned using proper project management make use of a WBS, and the activities to produce the work package deliverable would be broken down to an appropriate level for monitoring and controlling. Because such work packages are completed relatively quickly and frequently, the project manager can monitor completion of work packages as a way to show progress on deliverables within the time and cost allotted to them in the plan.