Pinnacle Insights

If you work program management on US defense contracts and have been following the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for 2024, you may have noticed some modifications to Earned Value Management System (EVMS) requirements that were added to section 827 of H.R. 2670, signed by President Biden on December 22, 2023.

Much has been written about how complicated and difficult Earned Value Management (EVM) can be, and a term that has grown in popularity in response to this perception is “EVM Lite.” One of the problems with the term “EVM Lite” is that it suggests a version of EVM that is incomplete in some way. 

Earned Value Management (EVM) is not a perfect fit for all types of projects. For example, short-term projects, low risk projects, or projects using agile development techniques may not benefit from a full Earned Value Management System (though they may still benefit from a scaled or tailored EVMS). But for most projects, where there is a risk to on-time, on-budget delivery, and where cost and schedule need to be managed, earned value management benefits the project greatly. 

This article is part of a series on the roles and responsibilities involved in performing Integrated Program Management. 

This article is part of a series on the roles and responsibilities involved in performing Integrated Program Management.

The NDIA Integrated Program Management Division (IPMD) winter meeting was recently held on January 29th and 30th. L3Harris was gracious enough to host again this year at their gorgeous High-Tech Center in Palm Bay, Florida. This meeting had a packed agenda, great turnout, and a lot of information was presented.

The EIA-748 Guidelines for Earned Value Management (EVM) have been in publication since 1998 when they were originally published by the Electronics Industry Alliance (EIA) as an American National Standards Institute (ANSI) standard, ANSI/EIA-748-1998 (note that EIA-748 Guidelines are no longer published as an ANSI standard and have not been for some time).