You are an experienced project manager who is well-known in your organization
You are an experienced project manager who is well-known in your organization
You are an experienced project manager who is well-known in your organization for being extremely knowledgeable about earned value management. One day, an individual with little formal project management training who happens to be serving as a program manager for a large and important program comes to you. She presents you with the latest earned value management data for the program shown below:
| Project Name | A | B | C | D | Program |
| Earned Value Metrics | |||||
| BAC | 68,000 | 340,000 | 1,600,000 | 750,000 | 2,758,000 |
| EV | 15,000 | 225,000 | 400,000 | 100,000 | 740,000 |
| AC | 11,000 | 235,000 | 350,000 | 115,000 | 711,000 |
| PV | 10,500 | 220,000 | 410,000 | 125,000 | 765,500 |
| Performance Indices | |||||
| CPI | 1.364 | .957 | 1.143 | .870 | 1.041 |
| SPI | 1.429 | 1.023 | .976 | .800 | .967 |
She then sighs deeply and speaks. “I can use your help! My project managers have provided me with these statistics. Based on the little understanding I have of this earned value management stuff, I told them it looked like we were in pretty good shape with the program overall. After all, it seems like the numbers indicate the program as a whole is trending about 4% under budget and is less than 4% behind schedule. I don’t see any significant cause for concern here, as I’m confident I can take some actions to bring the project back on track.”
She points a finger in your direction and continues, “You were described to me as someone who knows how to interpret these statistics. While my project managers offered me their thoughts, I wanted to get an objective opinion from someone not involved with the project. What do you think they mean? Should I be concerned about the program overall or any of its individual projects?”
What would you tell the program manager?
