Measuring Time : Improving Project Performance Using Earned Value Management

Earned Value Management (EVM) is a project management technique for measuring project progress in terms of cost, schedule and scope, and has developed into a very effective way to uncover performance problems at an early and correctible stage in any given project. From its earliest days as a financial analysis tool in the US in the early 1960's, it steadily grew in use through the US Department of Defense until it was made the standard measurement for all DoD, NASA, and Department of Energy projects, and was widely adopted by publicly-traded companies trying to comply with the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley ruling calling for greater transparency and accountability. It has also long been used in software engineering projects.

Winning the 2008 Research Award from IPMA for his research leading to this proposed book, author Mario Vanhoucke has surveyed the published literature to find and evaluate the effectiveness of the latest developments (and established practices) in EVM. After first explaining the fundamentals and terminology of the practice, he explores all the latest research trends and then tests them against a group of fictitious projects to gauge their effectiveness, offering general results applicable to a wide set of project types that researchers and practitioners can use to expand their work in EVM-managed projects. With a focus on the simple calculations behind EVM systems, Vanhoucke shows how they can often lead to misinterpretation and frustration and how to avoid common mistakes.

Meant to complement rather than compete with the existing books on the subject, the proposed book deals with the project performance and control phases of the project life cycle to present a detailed investigation of the project’s time performance measurement methods and risk analysis techniques in order to evaluate existing and newly developed methods in terms of their abilities to improve the corrective actions decision-making process during project tracking. As readers apply what is learned from the book, EVM practices will become even more effective in project management and cost engineering. Individual chapters look at simulation studies in forecast accuracy (under nine different scenarios); schedule adherence; time sensitivity; activity sensitivity; and using top-down or bottom-up project tracking. Vanhoucke also offers an actual real-life case study, a tutorial on the use of ProTrack software (newly developed based on his research) in EVM, and conclusions on the relative effectiveness for each technique presented. This will be an important read for anyone researching, using, or studying EVM and will certainly help to push the field forward in the coming years.