Earned value is a method for measuring project performance. It provides a way of comparing the plan to what has been achieved in both time and cost. Many organisations go part-way to earned value by comparing actual cost versus planned cost. Earned value takes that thinking one fundamental step forward to include a measure of progress. This measure of progress is called earned value and can be compared to the planned progress and expected cost and time. This is a powerful approach for providing a consistent performance standard across a team, a project or an organisation. This course provides in one day, an overview of the key concepts behind earned value and the implementation of a workable system.

• To provide an understanding of how earned value can help measure project performance
• To provide an understanding of the basic theory of earned value management
• To identify the challenges facing organisations wanting to use earned value
• To identify the benefits to organisations in using earned value

• Understand the purpose of earned value management
• Understand the questions that earned value can answer
• Understand the relationships between earned value, actual costs and planned value
• Calculate earned value indices
• Forecast final outcomes on cost and schedule
• Interpret earned value information
• Analyse trends using earned value information
• Understand the benefits of and challenges to the use of earned value management

Introduction  planning projects  measuring progress  purpose of earned value management  questions that earned value management can answer

 

Planning and measuring progress  work breakdown structures  activity network  critical path  resources  schedule  baseline  tracking  budget and spend

 

Planned value, earned value and actual cost  earned value  earned value schedule  earned value calculations

 

Performance indices  schedule performance index  cost performance index  schedule variance  cost variance

 

Forecasting final outcome  estimate at completion  time at completion

 

How to interpret the data  earned value graph  the formulae so far

 

Objective measures of progress  milestones - % complete  equivalent units  level of effort  apportioned effort

 

Analysing trends  bullseye chart  variance trends chart

 

Benefits of earned value management