Earned value management (EVM)

Earned value management (EVM) is a methodology for performance measurement which can be applied to individual projects across programs and portfolios . EVM is used in the planning, executing and controlling phases of the PMI Project Management Standard and mainly involves the knowledge areas of scope, time, cost, communication and integration . More specifically, EVM falls into the “project cost management” and “plan schedule and cost management” phases of the PMI Standard .

Figure 1: Earned value management for project management (own figure, based on )

Figure 1 shows how earned value management relates to project management phases and the activities which it comprises. While it might appear as a tool mainly related to monitoring and controlling, earned value management methodology brings to the project managers’ attention the importance of performance measurement since the initial planning phase, with the need for accurate planning and for the realization of a project which is easy to execute and measure.

This article will describe the earned value management methodology applied to projects, with motivations of its relevance, prerequisites for a successful implementation as well as concrete explanations and applications of each of its key metrics. While earned value management is a topic already widely discussed and analyzed in project management from a theoretical point of view, this article will focus on outlining practical real life special cases of projects and how project managers should apply EVM in these case. Finally, the main limitations of EVM will be discussed thoroughly, including suggestions for project managers on how to face these challenges.

Why project managers should use Earned Value Management?

Earned value management is a tool created and applied for the first time by the US Department of Defense in 1967 and later used to monitor the Department of Education projects, more specifically the U.S. Large Hadron Collider (LHC) of CERN , the world's largest and most powerful particle accelerator . The ability to connect cost and schedule, to identify numerical project performance indicators and express cost and technical performance in an understandable way, led to the diffusion of this tool and to its increased application in the field of project management .

Earned value management encompasses earned value analysis, variance analysis and forecasting of future trends. It is important to point out that while the earned value analysis is limited to define and calculate a set of indices to monitor the project’s schedule and cost, earned value management uses the data from EVA to calculate variance and trend analysis, as well as predictions for the future. Therefore, EVM methodology provides a holistic view on the project’s progress and clarifies any deviations from the project plan and budget, allowing project managers to then react to these discrepancies by implementing corrective actions.

The prerequisites for a successful implementation of EVM

There are prerequisites project managers should be aware of in order to implement the methodology in the best possible way. These activities range from planning to monitoring, and consist of:

• Applying the work breakdown structure (WBS) in order to decompose all the activities in control accounts, manageable work of a project with a specific scope, cost and schedule. Subsequently, human and material resources have to be allocated to each work package using the organization breakdown structure (OBS);
• Assigning management responsibility to each of the control account;
• Planning how to keep track of physical work progress and how to assign budgetary earned value for each activity ;
• Evaluating the method used to capture expenditures during the life cycle of a project to compare it with the budget ;
• Implementing change management plans to ensure EVM remains relevant if the scope changes ;
• Using an adequate cost collection system to track actual cost and outstanding invoices to avoid delays of invoices ;
• Conducting reporting activities in order to interpret the data obtained and subsequently communicate it to the relevant stakeholders .

How to implement EVM

The earned value management methodology comprises four main phases:

1. Defining the time-phased budget
2. Monitoring time and costs
3. Analyzing deviations and defining relevant indices
4. Forecasting

Earned value management consists in examining the relationship between three types curves:

• Budgeted Cost of Work Scheduled (BCWS): the planned and scheduled work - also called PV (planned value)

• Budgeted Cost of Work Performed (BCWP): the actual work performed according to the control account - also called EV (earned value)

• Actual Cost of Work Performed (ACWP): the actual expenditures of the control account up to the period of time in which the curve is analyzed - also called AC (actual cost)


Definition of the time-phased budget

The first step of earned value management is representing the BCWS, also called the baseline of the project, which represents the cumulative cost of the activities for each period of time and therefore aggregates the budgeted cost of all control accounts. The curve can be obtained thanks to the Gantt diagram, which displays the scheduled activities of the project in each unit of time. An example is provided below to clarify this process.

The following set of activities is given, with information on predecessors, scheduled time and budgeted cost.

Activity	Predecessor	Time	Cost	Monthly cost
A
2	30	15
B	A	2	40	20
C	A, B	1	30	30
D	B	4	40	10