This was an interesting chapter and set of classes.  Actually, the classes were probably the least helpful/organized of any of them so far, I think because so much of the information is interrelated.  The path through is really pretty straightforward, although in practice there are multiple passes and gathering the cost information for many projects can be like nailing jello to a tree.  It's hard to get people to commit - hence the multiple passes as more information is discovered.

I don't think I've ever had a cost management plan exactly at the beginning of a project.  Reviewing all the cost measurements, I realized that since software development is almost totally about the cost of resources  - people resources - that we can shortcut many of the more formal calculations.  Number of people times hours of work times the cost of the resources (standard for internal, at rate for external) tells you the actual cost pretty easily.  Most of the cost estimating is about the time required to analyze, design, code, test, and document an application.  I'm going to have to re-memorize the formulae and relate them to what most of us do for our software projects, but the concepts are familiar and pretty universal in the software world.  I/T or product development, you still have to know how much you're spending and decide on a regular basis if you want to continue and/or whether you're in a position to implement changes before you're done.

Usually when I cover these concepts with clients we work through an example from beginning to end.  These classes don't cover that kind of example so it's harder to relate the concepts to the actual work.  Obviously the PMBOK doesn't cover examples since it's a reference book, although I imagine if I take the time to look at the PMI site there are some examples that walk through the standard processes step by step.

Overall, though, as always a good reminder of how to put a cost plan together and that it's a good idea to have your plan together for monitoring and taking action before you actually begin work.