How do you evaluate and improve your EVM baseline planning skills and processes?
Before you start planning your EVM baseline, you need to understand the key concepts and terms of EVM. The baseline plan consists of three main elements: the work breakdown structure (WBS), the schedule, and the budget. The WBS defines the scope and deliverables of your project, and breaks them down into manageable work packages. The schedule shows the sequence and duration of the work packages, and assigns them to specific resources. The budget allocates the costs of the resources and activities to the work packages, and establishes the planned value (PV) of each work package. The PV is the amount of value you expect to earn for completing a work package according to the plan.
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Anand Abhishek
Portfolio Services Manager (Assistant Vice President) at HSBC | Ex- EY & Honeywell | IIT Dhanbad | Google Project Management Certified | 30x LinkedIn Top Voice
As a project manager, grasping the basics of EVM (Earned Value Management) is fundamental. It involves measuring project performance by comparing actual work completed, planned work, and associated costs. Understanding EVM helps in tracking project progress effectively and making informed decisions for successful project delivery.
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Mohammad Salehi
Planning Manager at ISOICO
EVM's formula are not completely useful for analysing time and cost status and must check simontanusely with other data and graphs like S_Curve, Critical Path, Cash flow, ....., Because it alone does not provide expected results
The quality of your EVM baseline plan depends largely on the clarity and completeness of your project scope and requirements. You need to define the project objectives, deliverables, boundaries, assumptions, constraints, and risks, and document them in a scope statement or a project charter. You also need to gather and analyze the needs and expectations of your stakeholders, and translate them into specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) requirements. You can use various techniques, such as interviews, surveys, workshops, brainstorming, prototyping, and modeling, to elicit and validate the requirements. You should also establish a process for managing changes to the scope and requirements, and communicate them to the relevant parties.
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Anand Abhishek
Portfolio Services Manager (Assistant Vice President) at HSBC | Ex- EY & Honeywell | IIT Dhanbad | Google Project Management Certified | 30x LinkedIn Top Voice
It involves clearly outlining the project's objectives, deliverables, and boundaries. Understanding stakeholders' needs and expectations is essential to establish comprehensive requirements. As a project manager, I remember the importance of thorough documentation and continuous communication to ensure alignment and mitigate scope creep.
Once you have a clear scope and requirements, you can create the WBS and the schedule for your project. The WBS is a hierarchical decomposition of the project scope into smaller and more manageable work packages, each with a unique identifier and a description. The WBS helps you organize and define the work that needs to be done, and provides a basis for estimating, scheduling, budgeting, and controlling your project. You can use various tools, such as WBS templates, software, or diagrams, to create and display your WBS. The schedule is a graphical representation of the sequence and duration of the work packages, and the dependencies and constraints among them. The schedule helps you plan and coordinate the resources and activities of your project, and monitor and control the progress and performance. You can use various tools, such as Gantt charts, network diagrams, critical path analysis, or software, to create and update your schedule.
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Anand Abhishek
Portfolio Services Manager (Assistant Vice President) at HSBC | Ex- EY & Honeywell | IIT Dhanbad | Google Project Management Certified | 30x LinkedIn Top Voice
Creating the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) involves breaking down the project into manageable tasks and subtasks, organized hierarchically. Establishing dependencies and milestones is crucial for accurate scheduling. As a project manager, I remember to involve key stakeholders and allocate resources efficiently to develop a realistic schedule that aligns with the WBS.
The next step in creating your EVM baseline plan is to estimate the costs and establish the budget for your project. The costs are the monetary value of the resources and activities required to complete the work packages. You can use various techniques, such as analogous, parametric, bottom-up, or three-point estimating, to calculate the costs of each work package, based on historical data, statistical models, expert judgment, or risk analysis. You should also include contingency reserves and management reserves to account for uncertainties and changes. The budget is the aggregation of the costs of all the work packages, plus any overhead or administrative costs. The budget sets the total planned value (PV) of your project, and serves as a baseline for measuring and controlling your project performance.
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Dan Lynch
Senior EVMS/IPM Consultant
Keep in mind that the budget, in the defense industrial world, is the pre-determined amount (less management reserve) of the negotiated contract cost.
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Anand Abhishek
Portfolio Services Manager (Assistant Vice President) at HSBC | Ex- EY & Honeywell | IIT Dhanbad | Google Project Management Certified | 30x LinkedIn Top Voice
Estimating costs involves predicting expenses for resources, labor, materials, and other project components. As a project manager, I rely on historical data, expert judgment, and vendor quotes for accurate cost estimation. Establishing a well-defined budget based on these estimates ensures financial control and effective resource allocation throughout the project lifecycle.
The final step in creating your EVM baseline plan is to review and validate it with your stakeholders and team members. You need to ensure that the baseline plan is realistic, feasible, accurate, consistent, and aligned with the project objectives and expectations. You can use various methods, such as checklists, audits, inspections, or simulations, to verify and test the quality and reliability of your baseline plan. You should also solicit feedback and approval from your stakeholders and team members, and resolve any issues or conflicts that may arise. You should document your baseline plan in a formal document or a software system, and communicate it to all the parties involved. You should also establish a process for managing and updating your baseline plan in case of changes or deviations.
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James Kubina
Senior Program Manager
In my experience on large defence contracts, EVM can fall down if work package dictionaries poorly describe the scope and outcome, and earned value achievement steps are not concretely defined, and understood by all. Then your metrics end up being faulty. In addition, extra energy needs to be spent with subcontractors, so that they understand the basis of each work package and retain the discipline of updating their EVM metric to the prime.
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