Earned Value is consistently monitored during a project to check that the schedule, costs, and resources are meeting baseline or budgeted amounts. For example, you might want to assess how efficiently funds are being used. For every $1 spent, the project is receiving $X worth of work. You would want to use the Cost Performance Index (CPI) to calculate the ratio of the work earned and the actual cost of the work (ie, Earned Value / Actual Cost).
Earned Value is most useful when you want to make predictions of the future. If you’ve found that your project is off track, then you might want to find out how much more money it will cost to complete the project. For this, you would calculate the Estimate to Complete.
You’ll notice that most of these terms and calculations are interconnected. Once you begin to use them often, it will be easier to remember their meanings and how to find other information out of limited data.
To make your life a bit easier, we’ve created a cheat sheet for all of the Earned Value terms, calculations, and interpretations. Primavera P6 calculates Earned Value for you so we’ve included the column names to use in layouts to have the data populated for you.
If you’re interested in learning more about Earned Value, then consider taking our in-class CPM106 – Advanced Topics in Primavera P6 R8 Windows or eCPM102 – Online Training for Primavera P6 Professional. Both of these courses cover Earned Value and how to use Primavera P6 for your analysis.
In the next installment, I’ll go over layouts to create using the Earned Value columns in Primavera P6 so watch out for that next. In the meantime, feel free to download the Earned Value Cheat Sheet!
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