All of you have had at least an introduction to earned value management in the project management fundamentals course. Many of you may have had the opportunity to use earned value management in your professional careers. In practice, most EVM analysis results are generated by scheduling software or other applications. As a project manager, you must have a good handle on the concepts and be able to verify the accuracy of EVM analysis results.
In this assignment, you will have an opportunity to brush up and expand upon your EVM knowledge and skills by applying EVM concepts to a practical problem.
Problem Background
Your project consists of seven activities with planned start and finish dates shown in the chart below:
Activity budgets and earned value (EV) accrual rules from you project cost management plan are as follows:
Assumptions
1. Assume a five-day work week with no holidays occurring during the work week.
2. For all activities (except activities 3 and 4), assume the expenditure rate is constant over the duration of the activity, i.e., the amount planned to be spent each week is the same. See the conceptual profile below.
3. For activity 3, the planned expenditure profile is shown below:
4. For activity 4, the planned expenditure profile is shown below:
The project sponsor wants you (the PM) to present a project cost and schedule performance assessment using data through the end of week 8. You have collected the following information:
For activity 1, three equally-valued gates have been established and all gates are complete as of the end of week 8.
For activity 3, five milestones have been established with the following values: (1) milestone 1 – 10%; milestone – 20%; milestone 3 – 15%; milestone 4 -20%; milestone 5 – 35%. Four of the milestones are complete as of the end of week 8.
For activity 4, four equally values gates (milestones) have been established. As of the end of week 8, none of the gates have been reached but the activity owner estimates 30% of the work required to reach the first gate has been accomplished.
Show all work. Round dollar values to the nearest dollar. Calculate all other variables to three decimal places.
1. Earned Value Measures
a. Calculate earned value measures for each activity and for the cumulative project as of the end of week 8; fill in the table below:
| Activity | Planned Value (PV) | Earned Value (EV) | Actual Cost (AC) |
| Activity One |
22,000 |
||
| Activity Two |
25,000 |
||
| Activity Three |
40,000 |
||
| Activity Four |
8,000 |
||
| Activity Five |
0 |
||
| Activity Six |
0 |
||
| Activity Seven |
0 |
||
| Entire Project |
2. Earned Value Performance Measures
a. Calculate earned value performance parameters for each activity and for the cumulative project as of the end of week 8; fill in the table below:
| Activity | Schedule Variance (SV) | Schedule Performance Index (SPI) | Cost Variance (CV) | Cost Performance Index (CPI) |
| Activity One | ||||
| Activity Two | ||||
| Activity Three | ||||
| Activity Four | ||||
| Activity Five | ||||
| Activity Six | ||||
| Activity Seven | ||||
| Entire Project |
b. Is the project ahead of schedule, on schedule, or behind schedule? What EVM information are you using to make this assessment and why?
c. Is the project over budget, under budget, or on budget? What EVM information are you using to make this assessment and why?
3. Earned Value Forecasts
a. What is the value of the “Cumulative CPI” Estimate-at-Completion (EAC)?
b. Using the “Mathematical” or “Overrun to Date” Estimate-at Completion, what is the value of the Estimate-to-Complete (ETC)?
c. Using the “Cumulative CPI times SPI” Estimate-At-Completion, how much more or less money (other than the current budgeted amount) will you need to finish the project?
d. How much would the Cost Performance Index (CPI) have to change in order to complete the project within the original budget?
