Earned Value Project Management

As a guide to assessment, achieves its aim.

it certainly

Dr Frances Clark People and Organization Potential Walton-on-Thames UK

Earned Quentin man Project $24.95

Value Project Management W Fleming and Joel M KoppleManagement Institute 1996 141 pp (US) ISBN I-880410-38-9

“Any road will get you there if you don’t know where you’re going.” Earned Value Project Management is more than a book. It is a challenge to project management! On the one hand there is the blinding simplicity of the presentation of Earned Value Project Management and on the other the impact that embracing the concept can have on both professional conduct and a corporate project management system. The Iirst chapter provides a description of the Earned Value Concept in a nutshell. This chapter is required reading for executives responsible for corporate “management by projects” and others involved in project management of significant undertakings. And that is the rub . . the insistence in the nutshell description and the rest of the book that somehow there is a separate and distinct discipline called Earned Value or to use its current ‘in term’ in Earned Value Management System when in fact what is espoused is a basic project management control structure. I have never been able to discriminate between so-called earned value and the practice of effective project management, the simple maxim of knowing where you are going, and where you are as you travel the project management route. The issue is one of semantics and Earned Value Project Management struggles valiantly to free itself of the jargon and mythology that has grown up over the past 20 years. That is, surrounding what is a very simple concept, but within which an extensive body of experts, acolytes and unsuspecting companies have subscribed to the philosophy that the concept of knowing where you are in terms of what you set out to do is in some

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way a special discipline to be promulgated by a chosen people. But I digress slightly to set the scene for the rest of the Earned Value Project Management book that explores the Earned Value Body of Knowledge (Chapter 3). The four elements of the Earned Value Management System detine the workScope the Work (Chapter 4), assigning and scheduling the work-Plan and Schedule the Project (Chapter 5), cost out the work -Estimate and Budget Resources (Chapter 6) and reporting the work. Chapters 7 and 8 are the heart of the matterEstablish and Monitor Performance against the Baseline. In all a very satisfying and mostly jargon-free account of the business of measuring project performance. The project system structures espoused by Fleming and Koppleman should be practiced by all but the most foolhardy project management organizations. That is, the use of a keystone highly structured work breakdown structure (WBS) and its companions, the assigned Cost Account Plan, Master Schedule, Performance Measurement Baseline and performance reporting. Earned Value Project Management brings to the table an insistence that project management system value is brought about through a rigid discipline of establishing an integrated cost/schedule plan, and relating progress to that plan. This is produced by a thorough and systematic integration, read functional synthesis of a project plan through integration, at a pragmatic level of detail of both a project cost and schedule plan. Further, that a metric must by determined during planning as to what constitutes achievement and how is this to be measured? This is powerful stuff! A jarring note, in the smooth flow of the Fleming-Koppleman thesis, that earned value is for all significant projects is the inclusion of the complete US Department of Defense-DOD Regulation CostSchedule Control System Criteria: Mandatory Procedures and Reporting. I have no problem with thought of criteria for a project management system. It does however reinforce those who see earned value as a singular USA defense requirement. That is, the Appendix does not serve the thesis well and dilutes the message. Some value would have been seen if the cloak of DOD had been discarded to expose the

criteria as check for any project management cost/schedule management system. It is a salutary exercise to use the criteria simply as a check list to see how well a corporate project management system stands up. Unless a “management by projects” organization is way out there on the leading edge it is likely that surprises await an objective mapping to a current and operational management system. Earned Value Project Management presents, in a readable fashion a concept that can easily slide off the road into a forest of terminology. The thesis can be read at two levels, the early project management practitioner who will quickly appreciate structural aspects of the project management method and the experienced Project Manager who can use the book as a top-down audit of the elements of an ongoing project performance measurement system. Earned Value Project Management is a valuable and basic text, suitable for any professional development learning programme. Apparently the “latest management fad. . is to subscribe to no fad.” Run if you come across value experts, consultants, helpful public agency focal points and software vendors, with earned value modules. Simply take the time to understand the earned value basics provided by Fleming and Koppleman. Then set out how your project management control system can subscribe and move towards an earned value project management system (EVMS). Chapter 10, Reengineering, is a concise and quick approach to rejecting the Mandatory Procedures of the Appendix and undertake the installation of a “scalable earned value measurement”. The thesis set out by this book is: If staying within the project funding is all that is important to a project, then plan versus actual cost metrics may be all that is needed. However, if one wants to understand what one is getting for the money being spent, then earned value project management is likely for you. David H Curling LODAY Project Management International Canada