Humphreys & Associates : - EVM Practitioner Connection

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EVM Practitioner Connection

Articles for EVM and integrated program management professionals looking to maximize the implementation and use of performance measurement techniques.



Article List
  • Assessing the Impact of Front Loading on the CPI and EAC


    Posted: 01/02/2012


    Since the early 1970's, Earned Value Management Systems (EVMS) have been recognized throughout the project management community as a useful early warning system. The early visibility to cost and schedule variances and concomitant project overruns and schedule slippages, are both friend and foe. A project manager who is conscientious and possesses strategic management skills appreciates the early visibility. A more myopic manager may view the early alert as an enemy that can impact career opportunities and bring about early project cancellation. The potential of early project cancellations is, and always will be, one of the downsides to early cost and schedule information. For some, living with latent unease is better than facing an unpalatable truth.


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  • Cost Performance Index Stability


    Posted: 04/25/2023


    Article by David S. Christensen and Scott R. Heise, 1993, published in the National Contract Management Journal 
     
    The cumulative Cost Performance Index (CPI) is a useful indicator to calculate the likely final cost of a completed contract. ...


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  • Level of Effort (LOE)


    Posted: 01/02/2012


    Level of Effort (LOE) Earned Value Method - a discussion of Levelo of Effort and best practices for calculating LOE earned value


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  • Level of Effort (LOE) Replanning


    Posted: 11/05/2012


    This article discusses how to avoid Level 3 Corrective Action Requests (CARs) that can result because of a lack of attention to level of effort (LOE) planned in support of discretely measured tasks. The symptom: repeat Level 2 CARs for having “BCWP with no ACWP” or “ACWP with no BCWP”. Are there legitimate reasons for this to occur?


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  • What is a Rubber Baseline?


    Posted: 01/02/2012


    The rubber baseline as initially defined (1970's vintage) was any change to the performance measurement baseline (PMB) that was incorporated to: 1. Avoid schedule variance. The budgeted cost of work scheduled (BCWS) was moved with the current schedule instead of the estimate to complete (ETC) moving with the current schedule. Back in the 70's, this was referred to as "snowplowing". 2. Pull BCWS forward (robbing budget from future work effort) to temporarily hide a cost variance. This action used to be referred to as "surfing". There have been some classic examples of this over the decades, and the end result was never good. One of the more well known examples was the Navy's A-12 program which ended up being cancelled. Other contractors have lost their EVM system validations because a project used out-year budget to complete near term work effort.


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  • Why the PERT Method Should be Avoided or Closely Monitored


    Posted: 01/02/2012


    The Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) earned value calculation method, or as some refer to it, the PERT formula, was developed in 1958, nine years before the advent of the Cost/Schedule Planning and Control Specification (C/SPCS). Because it was considered the forerunner of the earned value concept and involved a very simple calculation of the budgeted cost for work performed (BCWP), it became ingrained as an acceptable BCWP calculation method.


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