Cost Baseline
The approved, time-phased project budget used to measure and control cost performance.
The cost baseline is the approved, time-phased budget formed by summing work package cost estimates plus contingency reserves for identified (known-unknown) risks. It is established in the Determine Budget process and is the reference against which actual cost performance is measured. Management reserve sits above the baseline for unknown-unknowns and requires a change request to access, so it is outside the performance measurement baseline. Cost baseline plus management reserve equals the total project budget. Earned value metrics—CV, SV, CPI, SPI—are calculated against the cost baseline, not the total budget. Any baseline change passes through integrated change control.
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