Earned Value Management

Challenge

Organizations are increasingly required to manage projects with lower budgets and in shorter time frames.  Executives are often forced to make project viability decisions early in the project lifecycle.  In this high pressure, competitive environment, managers are seeking more effective ways to refine estimates and estimation practices and forecast final costs earlier in the project planning process. Earned Value (EV) is a recognized set of measures used to provide this information, however implementation of the Earned Value Management (EVM) processes and standards can be difficult for many organizations to achieve.

Solution

The Microsoft Enterprise Project Management (EPM) Solution provides a framework for the automatic generation and aggregation of Earned Value metrics. Executives can utilize this best practice technique to accurately assess project performance and quickly identify deviations from the original estimate, improving visibility and control across the project portfolio.

Earned Value Reporting

The Microsoft Enterprise Project Management Solution enables project managers to generate EV metrics at the detailed task level  and  automatically roll up to the project level.  Project information, including the EV metrics, is published to Microsoft® Office Project Server 2007 and can then be viewed through a variety of configurable reports, scorecards and executive dashboards. 

Detailed metrics can be created without requiring additional processes or effort from project managers.  Microsoft® Office Project Professional 2007 provides out of the box Earned Value reports and views that ensure the project manager and stakeholders can accurately assess the projects status.

Portfolio Level Decision-Making

Earned Value metrics retained in the Office Project Server 2007 repository can be automatically synchronized with Microsoft® Office Project Portfolio Server 2007. When used as part of the corporate governance process, Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 retains alignment, prioritization, optimization, and budget and cost information that is augmented by the Earned Value and performance metrics. Executives and portfolio analysts can assess EV metrics in conjunction with other project and portfolio metrics (e.g. Strategic Value, Risk, Financial Value) to support project portfolio funding decisions (e.g. “go/no-go”).

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