Earned Value

SOS section 3.7

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Earned Value Analysis

One approach to measuring progress in a software project is to calculate how much has been accomplished. This is called earned value analysis. It is basically the percentage of the estimated time that has been completed. Additional measures can be calculated.

Although this is based on estimated effort, it could be based on any quantity that can be estimated and is related to progress.

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Basic Measures - 1

Budgeted Cost of Work (BCW): the estimated effort for each work task.

Budgeted Cost of Work Scheduled (BCWS): the sum of the estimated effort for each work task that was scheduled to be completed by the specified time.

Budget at Completion (BAC): the total of the BCWS and thus the estimate of the total effort for the project

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Basic Measures - 2

Planned Value (PV): the percentage of the total estimated effort that is assigned to a particular work task. PV = BCW/BAC 

Budgeted Cost of Work Performed (BCWP): the sum of the estimated efforts for the work tasks that have been completed by the specified time.  

Actual Cost of Work Performed (ACWP): the sum of the actual efforts for the work tasks that have been completed

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Progress Measures

Earned Value(EV) = BCWP/BAC

the sum of the PV’s for all completed work tasks 

Schedule Performance Index (SPI) = BCWP/BCWS

Schedule Variance (SV) = BCWP – BCWS

Cost Performance Index (CPI) = BCWP/ACWP

Cost Variance (CV) = BCWP – ACWP

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Example – as of 4/1/08 task Est

effortActual effort

Est Comp Date

Actual Date Comp

1 75 60 1/25/08 2/1/08

2 25 40 2/15/08 2/15/08

3 120 80 5/15/08  

4 40 50 4/15/08 4/1/08

5 60 50 7/1/08  

6 80 70 9/01/08  

 

For next Tuesday – 1 or 2 people

Use the data from slide 6. Assume that the rest of the tasks finish 1 month late.

Calculate EV, SPI, SV, CPI, and CV at half month intervals from Jan 1 through the finish of the project.

Plot the values as line graphs. Turn in hard copy of the spreadsheet and the graphs.

25 points

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Tuesday, Jan 29 – post mortem

Read two articles– Anreas Birk,”Postmortem: Never Leave a

Project without It”– June Vernier “In-House Software

Development: What Project Management Practices Lead to Success”

– Making Meaning for each – upload together on Monday

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