Earned value management

Monte-Carlo simulations can be used for various purposes to analyze the behaviour of projects in (fictitious) progress. It can be used to measure the sensitivity of project activities as described in “Schedule Risk Analysis: How to measure your baseline schedule’s sensitivity?” or to evaluate the accuracy of forecasting methods used in Earned Value Management (see “Predicting project performance: Evaluating the forecasting accuracy”). In this article, a simple yet effective Monte-Carlo simulation approach is proposed consisting of nine simulation scenarios that can be used to link critical path schedules to project control information.

Controlling a project is key to the success or failure of the project. Earned Value Management (EVM) is a well-known technique to control the time and cost performance of a project and to predict the final project duration and cost. Predicting the final project duration and/or cost of a project in progress, given the current project performance, is a crucial step during project control. In an EVM analysis, quite a number of time and cost forecasting techniques are available, but it is however a cumbersome task to select the right technique for the project under study. 

Measuring and controlling the performance of a project in progress is key to the success or failure of a project. It requires a set of metrics to measure the current progress and to forecast the future expected project behavior such that the project manager is able to timely detect project problems and take corrective actions to bring the project back on track.

The time and cost performance of a project in progress can be determined by comparing the three key parameters of an earned value management system, known as planned value (PV), actual cost (AC) and earned value (EV). These three metrics can be used to calculate two time variance measures SV and SV(t) and one cost variance CV, as follows: 

Controlling a project is key to the success or failure of the project. Earned Value Management (EVM) is a well-known technique to control the time and cost performance of a project and to predict the final project duration and cost. It is an easy tool to generate early warning signals to timely detect project problems or to exploit opportunities. An overview of the EVM metrics is given in “Earned Value Management: An overview” and the formulas are summarized in “Earned Value Management: The EVM formulary”.

Controlling a project is key to the success or failure of the project. Earned Value Management (EVM) is a well-known technique to control the time and cost performance of a project and to predict the final project duration and cost. It is an easy tool to generate early warning signals to timely detect problems or to exploit project opportunities. An overview of the EVM metrics is given in “Earned Value Management: An overview” and the formulas are summarized in “Earned Value Management: The EVM formulary”.

Controlling a project is key to the success or failure of the project. Earned Value Management (EVM) is a well-known technique to control the time and cost performance of a project and to predict the final project duration and cost. It is an easy tool to generate early warning signals to timely detect problems or to exploit project opportunities. An overview of the EVM metrics is given in “Earned Value Management: An overview” and the formulas are summarized in “Earned Value Management: The EVM formulary”.

Controlling a project is key to the success or failure of the project. Earned Value Management (EVM) is a well-known technique to control the time and cost performance of a project and to predict the final project duration and cost. It is an easy tool to generate early warning signals to timely detect problems or to exploit project opportunities. An overview of the EVM metrics is given in “Earned Value Management: An overview” and the formulas are summarized in “Earned Value Management: The EVM formulary”.

Controlling a project is key to the success or failure of the project. Earned Value Management (EVM) is a well-known technique to control the time and cost performance of a project and to predict the final project duration and cost. It is an easy tool to generate early warning signals to timely detect project problems or to exploit project opportunities. An overview of the EVM metrics is given in “Earned Value Management: An overview” and the formulas are summarized in “Earned Value Management: The EVM formulary”.

Controlling a project is key to the success or failure of the project. Earned Value Management (EVM) is a well-known technique to control the time and cost performance of a project and to predict the final project duration and cost. It is an easy tool to generate early warning signals to timely detect problems or to exploit project opportunities. An overview of the EVM metrics is given in “Earned Value Management: An overview” and the formulas are summarized in “Earned Value Management: The EVM formulary”.