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Combination of Project Management and Earned Value Management

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Research resource estimation techniques necessary to generate a high level budget for a re-carpeting project. Formulate the resource estimates and budget for the re-carpeting project, preferably in a spreadsheet. Include in the spreadsheet:

-Integrating scope with costs and schedules
-Management services
-Project baseline
-Methods used to plan Earned Value and control account plans

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Solution Summary

A discussion and example of a potential project and the items to be considered for the scope of the project.

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Let's first start with an overview and really detailed view of the earned value management principle. From this we should be able to answer and construct the necessary ingredients mentioned above in the discovery phase of the request:

Earned value management (EVM), or Earned value project/performance management (EVPM) is a project management technique for measuring project performance and progress in an objective manner.

Contents [hide]
1 Overview
1.1 Application example
2 History
3 Earned value management topics
3.1 Project tracking
3.2 Project tracking with EVM
3.3 Earned value (EV)
3.4 Scaling EVM from simple to advanced implementations
3.5 Simple implementations (emphasizing only technical performance)
3.6 Intermediate implementations (integrating technical and schedule performance)
3.7 Making earned value schedule metrics concordant with the CPM schedule
3.8 Advanced implementations (integrating cost, schedule and technical performance)
4 Agile EVM
4.1 Preparation
4.2 Practices
4.3 Calculations
4.4 Schedule Performance
5 Limitations
6 See also
7 References
8 Further reading
9 External links
Overview[edit]
Earned value management is a project management technique for measuring project performance and progress. It has the ability to combine measurements of the project management triangle:

Scope
Schedule, and
Costs
In a single integrated system, Earned Value Management is able to provide accurate forecasts of project performance problems, which is an important contribution for project management.

Early EVM research showed that the areas of planning and control are significantly impacted by its use; and similarly, using the methodology improves both scope definition as well as the analysis of overall project performance. More recent research studies have shown that the principles of EVM are positive predictors of project success.[1] Popularity of EVM has grown in recent years beyond government contracting, in which sector its importance continues to rise[2] (e.g., recent new DFARS rules[3]), in part because EVM can also surface in and help substantiate contract disputes.[4]

Essential features of any EVM implementation include

a project plan that identifies work to be accomplished,
a valuation of planned work, called Planned Value (PV) or Budgeted Cost of Work Scheduled (BCWS), and
pre-defined "earning rules" (also called metrics) to quantify the accomplishment of work, called Earned Value (EV) or Budgeted Cost of Work Performed (BCWP).
EVM implementations for large or complex projects include many more features, such as indicators and forecasts of cost performance (over budget or under budget) and schedule performance (behind schedule or ahead of schedule). However, the most basic requirement of an EVM system is that it quantifies progress using PV and EV.

Application example[edit]
Project A has been approved for a duration of 1 year and with the budget of X. It was also planned, that the project spends 50% of the approved budget in the first 6 months. If now 6 months after the start of the project a Project Manager would report that he has spent 50% of the budget, one can initially think, that the project is perfectly on plan. However in reality the provided information is not sufficient to come to such a conclusion. The project can spend 50% of the budget, whilst finishing only 25% of the work, which would mean the project is not doing well; or the project can spend 50% of the budget, whilst completing 75% of the work, which would mean that project is doing better than planned. EVM is meant to address such and similar issues.

History[edit]
EVM emerged[5] as a financial analysis specialty in United States Government programs in the 1960s, but it has since become a significant branch of project management and cost engineering. Project management research investigating the contribution of EVM to project success suggests a moderately strong positive relationship.[6] Implementations of EVM can be scaled to fit projects of all sizes and complexities.

The genesis of EVM occurred in industrial manufacturing at the turn of the 20th century, based largely on the principle of "earned time" popularized by Frank and Lillian Gilbreth, but the concept took root in the United States Department of Defense in the 1960s. The original concept was called PERT/COST, but it was considered overly burdensome (not very adaptable) by contractors who were mandated to use it, and many variations of it began to proliferate among various procurement programs. In 1967, the DoD established a criterion-based approach, using a set of 35 criteria, called the Cost/Schedule Control Systems Criteria (C/SCSC). In the 1970s and early 1980s, a subculture of C/SCSC analysis grew, but the technique was often ignored or even actively resisted by project managers in both government and industry. C/SCSC was often considered a financial control tool that could be delegated to analytical specialists.

In 1979, EVM was introduced to the architecture and engineering industry in a "Public Works Magazine" article by David Burstein, a project manager with a national engineering firm. This technique has been taught ever since as part of the project management training program presented by PSMJ Resources, an international training and consulting firm that specializes in the engineering and architecture industry.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, EVM emerged as a project management methodology to be understood and used by managers and executives, not just EVM specialists. In 1989, EVM leadership was elevated to the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, thus making EVM an element of program management and procurement. In 1991, Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney canceled the Navy A-12 Avenger II Program because of performance problems detected by EVM. This demonstrated conclusively that EVM mattered to secretary-level leadership. In the 1990s, many U.S. Government regulations were eliminated or streamlined. However, EVM not only survived the acquisition reform movement, but became strongly associated with the acquisition reform movement itself. Most notably, from 1995 to 1998, ownership of EVM criteria (reduced to 32) was transferred to industry by adoption of ANSI EIA 748-A standard.[7]

The use of EVM expanded beyond the U.S. Department of Defense. It was adopted by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, United States Department of Energy and other technology-related agencies. Many industrialized nations also began to utilize EVM in their own procurement programs.

An overview of EVM was included in the Project Management Institute's first PMBOK Guide in 1987 and was expanded in subsequent editions. In the most recent edition of the PMBOK guide, EVM is listed among the general tools and techniques for processes to control project costs.[8]

The construction industry was an early commercial adopter of EVM. Closer integration of EVM with the practice of project management accelerated in the 1990s. In 1999, the Performance Management Association merged with the Project Management Institute (PMI) to become PMI's first college, the College of Performance Management. The United States Office of Management and Budget began to mandate the use of EVM across all government agencies, and, for the first time, for certain internally managed projects (not just for contractors). EVM also received greater attention by publicly traded companies in response to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.

In Australia EVM has been codified as standards AS 4817-2003 and AS 4817-2006.

Earned value management topics[edit]
Project tracking[edit]
Figure 1: Tracking AC against a "spend plan" is inconclusive (without EV).Figure 2: Measuring schedule performance without knowledge of actual cost.Figure 3: Measuring cost performance without a PV baseline.Figure 4: The most common form of EVM graphic.
It is helpful to see an example of project tracking that does not include earned value performance management. Consider a project that has been planned in detail, including a time-phased spend plan for all elements of work. Figure 1 shows the cumulative budget (cost) for this project as a function of time (the blue line, labeled PV). It also shows the cumulative actual cost of the project (red line) through week 8. To those unfamiliar with EVM, it might appear that this project was over budget through week 4 and then under budget from week 6 through week 8. However, what is missing from this chart is any understanding of how much work has been accomplished during the project. If the project was actually completed at week 8, then the project would actually be well under budget and well ahead of schedule. If, on the other hand, the project is only 10% complete at week 8, the project is significantly over budget and behind schedule. A method is needed to measure technical performance objectively and quantitatively, and that is what EVM accomplishes.

Project tracking with EVM[edit]
Consider the same project, except this time the project plan includes pre-defined methods of quantifying the accomplishment of work. At the end of each week, the project manager identifies every detailed element of work that has been completed, and sums the EV for each of these completed elements. Earned value may be accumulated monthly, weekly, or as progress is made.

Earned value (EV)[edit]

begin{align}
mathrm{EV} & = sum_mathrm{Start}^mathrm{Current} mathrm{PV(Completed)}
end{align}

Figure 2 shows the EV curve (in green) along with the PV curve from Figure 1. The chart indicates that technical performance (i.e., progress) started more rapidly than planned, but slowed significantly and fell behind schedule at week 7 and 8. This chart illustrates the schedule performance aspect of EVM. It is complementary to critical path or critical chain schedule management.

Figure 3 shows the same EV curve (green) with the actual cost data from Figure 1 (in red). It can be seen that the project was actually under budget, relative to the amount of work accomplished, since the start of the project. This is a ...

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