As a guide to assessment, it certainly
achieves its aim.
Dr Frances Clark
People and Organization Potential
Walton-on-Thames
UK
Earned Value Project Management
Quentin W Fleming and Joel M Kopple-
man
Project Management Institute 1996 141 pp
$24.95 (US) ISBN I-880410-38-9
“Any road will get you there if you don’t
know where you’re going.”
Earned Value Project Management is
more than a book. It is a challenge to pro-
ject management! On the one hand there is
the blinding simplicity of the presentation
of Earned Value Project Management and
on the other the impact that embracing the
concept can have on both professional
conduct and a corporate project manage-
ment system.
The Iirst chapter provides a description
of the Earned Value Concept in a nutshell.
This chapter is required reading for ex-
ecutives responsible for corporate “man-
agement by projects” and others involved
in project management of significant
undertakings. And that is the rub . . the
insistence in the nutshell description and
the rest of the book that somehow there is a
separate and distinct discipline called
Earned Value or to use its current ‘in term’
in Earned Value Management System when
in fact what is espoused is a basic project
management control structure.
I have never been able to discriminate
between so-called earned value and the
practice of effective project management,
the simple maxim of knowing where you
are going, and where you are as you travel
the project management route. The issue is
one of semantics and Earned Value Project
Management struggles valiantly to free
itself of the jargon and mythology that has
grown up over the past 20 years. That is,
surrounding what is a very simple concept,
but within which an extensive body of
experts, acolytes and unsuspecting compa-
nies have subscribed to the philosophy that
the concept of knowing where you are in
terms of what you set out to do is in some
66
way a special discipline to be promulgated
by a chosen people.
But I digress slightly to set the scene for
the rest of the Earned Value Project Man-
agement book that explores the Earned
Value Body of Knowledge (Chapter 3).
The four elements of the Earned Value
Management System detine the work-
Scope the Work (Chapter 4), assigning and
scheduling the work-Plan and Schedule
the Project (Chapter 5), cost out the work
-Estimate and Budget Resources (Chap-
ter 6) and reporting the work. Chapters 7
and 8 are the heart of the matter-
Establish and Monitor Performance against
the Baseline. In all a very satisfying and
mostly jargon-free account of the business
of measuring project performance.
The project system structures espoused
by Fleming and Koppleman should be
practiced by all but the most foolhardy
project management organizations. That is,
the use of a keystone highly structured work
breakdown structure (WBS) and its compa-
nions, the assigned Cost Account Plan,
Master Schedule, Performance Measure-
ment Baseline and performance reporting.
Earned Value Project Management
brings to the table an insistence that project
management system value is brought about
through a rigid discipline of establishing
an integrated cost/schedule plan, and relat-
ing progress to that plan. This is produced
by a thorough and systematic integration,
read functional synthesis of a project plan
through integration, at a pragmatic level of
detail of both a project cost and schedule
plan. Further, that a metric must by
determined during planning as to what
constitutes achievement and how is this to
be measured? This is powerful stuff!
A jarring note, in the smooth flow of the
Fleming-Koppleman thesis, that earned
value is for all significant projects is the
inclusion of the complete US Department
of Defense-DOD Regulation CostSche-
dule Control System Criteria: Mandatory
Procedures and Reporting. I have no
problem with thought of criteria for a
project management system. It does how-
ever reinforce those who see earned value
as a singular USA defense requirement.
That is, the Appendix does not serve the
thesis well and dilutes the message. Some
value would have been seen if the cloak of
DOD had been discarded to expose the
criteria as check for any project manage-
ment cost/schedule management system. It
is a salutary exercise to use the criteria
simply as a check list to see how well a
corporate project management system
stands up. Unless a “management by
projects” organization is way out there on
the leading edge it is likely that surprises
await an objective mapping to a current and
operational management system.
Earned Value Project Management
presents, in a readable fashion a concept
that can easily slide off the road into a
forest of terminology. The thesis can be
read at two levels, the early project
management practitioner who will quickly
appreciate structural aspects of the project
management method and the experienced
Project Manager who can use the book as a
top-down audit of the elements of an
ongoing project performance measurement
system. Earned Value Project Manage-
ment is a valuable and basic text, suitable
for any professional development learning
programme.
Apparently the “latest management
fad. . is to subscribe to no fad.” Run if
you come across value experts, consul-
tants, helpful public agency focal points
and software vendors, with earned value
modules. Simply take the time to under-
stand the earned value basics provided by
Fleming and Koppleman. Then set out how
your project management control system
can subscribe and move towards an earned
value project management system
(EVMS). Chapter 10, Reengineering, is a
concise and quick approach to rejecting the
Mandatory Procedures of the Appendix
and undertake the installation of a “scal-
able earned value measurement”.
The thesis set out by this book is:
If staying within the project funding
is all that is important to a project,
then plan versus actual cost metrics
may be all that is needed. However, if
one wants to understand what one is
getting for the money being spent,
then earned value project manage-
ment is likely for you.
David H Curling
LODAY Project Management
International
Canada