Guest Speaker Session on “Project Cost Formulation and Project Cost Control” by Mr. Ali Hassan Rizvi, Project Manager, Information Technology Division, Meezan Bank Limited, Head Office, SITE, Karachi organized by Mr. Muhammad Akbar Saeed for the course Project Cost and Finance Management
The guest speaker, an MBA in Finance from BUKC, has done specialized four-week course in Project Management from LUMS. He has very good and pertinent experience of about ten years in the field of project management and has progressed to the position of Project Manager in Meezan Bank Limited (MBL). He first dwelt on the concept and importance of project management and then explained the process of formulation of project cost from theoretical perspective and then related the same with a current large strategic project valued at $35M being undertaken in MBL. This project envisages creation of a complete digital banking solution for customers of MBL. The students were very inquisitive in putting up questions pertaining to all possible dimensions of the digital banking project. All of the questions were amicably answered by Mr. Ali Rizvi. The session was very interesting and pertinent, especially for those students who were from the Information Technology and Software Engineering background. Although the project has strategic importance for MBL and its data is supposedly confidential, however Mr. Rizvi was able to share and educate the students with relevant facts and figures involving the project. The session was planned for around 75 minutes. However, the question answer session became the most interesting part and therefore the session continued for nearly two hours. The students benefitted from the guest speaker’s expertise and real world knowledge in the field of Project Management.
Learning Outcomes
1. Formulation of Project Cost
2. Financing of the project cost.
3. Analysis of the key financials of the project
Evaluation: Pertinent discussion of project cost formulation, its financials followed by a lively and prolonged question answer session.