Advantages Of The Earned Schedule

The implementation phase is to combine the individual components of the system, verify and test, convert data and integrate system components, document and install the system. (Post & Anderson). The project’s risks and probability of its success will be based on the feasibility study that included both economic via cost-benefit analysis and legal reviews. Moreover, before the sign off a great deal of financial analysis went into this project including ROI (projected return on investment) and NPV (projected Net Present Value). The (ROI) is a calculation that measures the average rate of return earned on the money invested in the project. NPV is a basic formula to convert future cash flow to present value. (Thomson, Strickland, and Gamble)

- Schedule Variance (SV): The Schedule Variance indicates a value which is a measure of how much the project is either ahead or behind at a given point in time. For any given point in time, once the EV and PV are known the SV can easily be calculated. The formula for SV is quite simply: SV = EV – PV. Here a positive value indicates that the project is ahead at the current point in time and a negative value would indicate the opposite that a project is behind at the current point in time.

Week 4 DQ 1 Resource Allocation and Leveling PROJ 592 Week 4 DQ 2 Advanced Schedule Techniques PROJ 592 Week 5 DQ 1 Earned Value Calculation PROJ 592 Week 5 DQ 2 Project Monitoring and Control & EV PROJ 592 Week 6 DQ 1 Forecasting Project Completion Cost PROJ 592 Week 6 DQ 2 Project Control PROJ 592 Week 7 DQ

A) The weekly budget is formed by only using the early start times of each activity.

| a) Using the traditional method of assessing project performance, we would be able to see if we have been over or under budget and timelines, and we would only have this information once the project has been completed. However, with the traditional approach would not be able to effectively track project performance at a task level and at any given point in time. Due to this, decisions that may need to be taken during the project or identifying issues or project health during project execution is more difficult using traditional approaches than using the EVM process. b) The EVM process is based on tracking the schedule and cost performance at a task level on an on-going basis, that will help determine project task level and overall status with effective indicators that would help make project related decisions. In the EVM process, a baseline plan is made for project costs and timelines and then these are tracked against actual costs and work completion to find out the cost variances and schedule variances and cost and schedule indexes, that will help determine how the project is performing on these parameters. If the variances are in negative or if the indexes are less than 1, it means that the task or the project is behind on cost and schedule and

We used PV (planned Value), AC (actual cost), and EV (earned value) to calculate SPI (schedule performance index), SV (schedule variance), CPI (cost performance index), and CV (cost variance). Among these indicators, SPI and SV show whether a project is behind schedule or not, and CPI and CV indicate whether a project is under budget. Therefore, the statuses of the schedule and cost of technical infrastructure, software customization, and combined projects can be easily and clearly checked, respectively.

With this formula we can also calculate the time and the amount of money the capital invested in the project will have generate profits.

The Measurement Construct utilized in the Riordan Project is based on the adherence to estimate. Accurate project estimation is crucial in keeping project costs down and stakeholders happy. The Key Performance Indicator project managers want to minimize is expressed by the formula [(E-A)/E], where E = estimated Value to complete project and A = actual Value used to complete project. Project managers can substitute any value into the equation, such as hours or cost, to determine adherence to estimate. This will allow the project management team to spot trends early on during the project and then make the necessary adjustments.

Spokane Industries has contracted Franklin Electronics for an 18 month product development contract. Franklin Electronics is new to using project management methodologies and have not been exposed to earned value management methodologies. Even though Franklin and Spokane have worked together in the past, they have mainly used fixed price contracts with little to no stipulations. For this project Spokane Industries is requiring Franklin Electronics to use formalized project management methodologies, earned value cost schedules, and schedules for reports and meetings. Since Franklin Electronics had had no experience with earned value management, the cost accounting group was trained in the methodology in order to bid for the

Monitoring and control activities are essential components to effective project management (Chrissis, Konrad, & Shrum, 2011; PMI, 2013). The main purpose of monitoring and control activities are to having an understanding of project progress/performance against the agreed upon plan, identify potential risks, provide accurate forecasts, and to ensure corrective actions are taken when necessary (Chrissis et al., 2011; PMI, 2013). Successful cost and schedule control involves much more than merely monitoring project progress and costs, it involves thorough analysis of the data (Kerzner, 2013, p. 738). One of the most effective tools for performance measurement, monitoring, and control is earned value management (EVM); a powerful technique which employs quantitative data to objectively monitor and control project progress (De Marco & Narbaev, 2013).

According to Wysocki (2012), there are many challenges to keeping a project running smoothly, but as a project manager for Pizza Delivery Quickly, your main concern is about monitoring the established metrics that can alert a project is heading for distress. The project manager must be able to analyze the situation, revise the goals, evaluate the different options and be able to revise the plan as needed. Metrics can facilitate the tracking system, which is essential for evaluating the current project performance level. A cutting edge tracking system serves as a gold standard benchmark or key indicator of the level of progress for the entire project. It is also important to note that the schedule performance index is one of the most widely used metrics for tracking

Wysocki says “tracking project performance using metrics, like schedule performance index (SPI) and cost performance index (CPI) and discussing the results with project stakeholders will eliminate surprises later in the project and may lead to a successful completion of your project” (p.638). Earned value analysis (EVA), otherwise known as earned value management (EVM), has been around for many years (Wysocki, 2012). Many say that EVM originated in the federal government and later was deployed in the private industry. It was noted in earlier discussion, actual cost, earned value and planned value looks at one form of analysis and schedule performance (SPI) and cost performance index looks at something else. They are computed as follows: SPI = EV / PV CPI = EV / AC. The order entry

4. During which month of the project are the highest and lowest costs expected to

In field of project management, there are a plethora of mechanisms under perpetual reevaluation. One specific segmentation of project management under such scrutiny pertains to cost duration, which is the time and monetary costs of completing individual tasks within the project’s critical path (IBM Knowledge Center, 2016). The process of monitoring and evaluating the time and financial impacts of each task is referred to as cost duration analysis (IBM Knowledge Center, 2016). A chief concern of cost duration analysis is identifying tasks within the project’s critical path which can reduce project duration (PMI, 2013). A common approach to reducing a project’s duration is task “crashing” (PMI, p.181). According to The Project Management Institute (2013) crashing refers to the process of methodical determining the financial value of increasing a critical path task’s resources in order to decrease project duration (p.181).

In almost every business, project management is critically important. The critical path method (CPM) will provide a timeline for the project manager for when tasks should be completed. In addition, providing a deadline and the negative effects it will have on the following successors if not completed on time. These many task are interdepended. Therefore, the CPM provides the start and finishes times of the tasks, and identifies the few tasks on the critical path that the project manager should observe to determine which task needs the most attention. Already discovering and incorporating the details the task or assignments may require, CPM calculates all task times, which can be measured in hours, days, weeks, and months. For any unintended manually input errors, a warning message will be provided. Including an automatic successor generator, task numbering comment, and data validation, makes it easier on the project manager.