Project Management

Earned Value is an objective measurement of how much work has been accomplished on a project. Earned Value helps determine if your project is on schedule and within budget by assessing the project on the basis of the approved plan for cost and schedule as compared to what has been accomplished. The earned value of work performed (value completed) for those tasks in progress is found by multiplying the estimated percent completion for each task by the planned cost for that task.

Variances on the earned value chart follow two primary guidelines:

1. A negative is means there is a deviation from plan—not good

2. The cost variances are calculated as the earned value minus some other measure

The three variances of an earned value chart are:

* Cost variance

* Schedule variance

* Time variance

Cost Variance: The cost variance (CV) is the difference between the amount of money we budgeted for work that has been performed to date (EV) and the actual cost (AC) of that work. [Cost variance = EV – AC]

Negative variance indicates a cost overrun and magnitude depends on the cost.

Schedule Variance: The schedule variance is the difference between the earned value (EV) and the cost of the work we scheduled to be performed to date or planned value (PV). [Schedule variance = EV – PV]

Negative variance indicates that you are behind schedule and SV can be measured using costs.

Time Variance: The time variance (TV) is the difference in the time scheduled for the work that has been performed (ST) and the actual time used to perform it (AT). [Time variance = ST – AT]

Negative variance indicates that you are behind schedule.

Example: Non-work application

For my quality assurance project in the spring 2014 semester, I was part of a group that was given the task to develop a 9V battery from scratch. Every group working on the project was provided with an estimated budget, by the professor, not to be exceeded. The budget contained the total amount we

were to...