Pinnacle Insights

This year's EVM World event was held on May 22nd - 24th, 2019 at The Westin Hotel in Fort Lauderdale, FL. Workshop sessions this year reinforced the EVM World theme of "Maximizing Program & Performance Management Through Collaboration". 

When Earned Value is applied to Government sponsored programs via the EIA-748 guidelines, all program resources must be accounted for in the EV data elements. These include direct labor, materials and subcontracts as well as applicable indirect costs.

At the beginning of February I attended the NDIA IPMD Winter 2019 meeting in Melbourne, FL. With many topics discussed, the EVMIG was one of much anticipation.

Often these two terms are used interchangeably, but they mean very different things to those of us who have been implementing project management and project controls systems.  

In Part 2 of this series, Schedule Analysis, Part 2: Why Should I Do It?, it was stated that schedule analysis increases confidence in the schedule and its results. It provides information as to where the schedule needs to be improved and how it needs to be improved. 

In Part 1 of this series, Schedule Analysis, Part 1: What Is It?, provided a brief introduction to schedule analysis. This article discusses why a schedule analysis should be performed. But first, a point of clarification. Schedule analysis and Schedule Risk Analysis (SRA) are two different things. 

At the most recent NDIA Integrated Program Management (IPM) Division Meeting, John McGregor, Director of Earned Value Management for OSD Performance Assessment & Root Cause Analysis (PARCA) took the stage to discuss the latest updates related to EVM threshold requirements for DoD contracts. During the presentation, John clarified that DoD Instruction 5000.02 is finalized, signed and in full affect, even though the document looks like it may be in draft form.

A schedule is a time-model of how you as the supplier or manager plan on executing your project. It represents the project scope, resources, assumptions and constraints of the project. Like a cost model, the time model or schedule should respond to changes.