Hello there,
I am currently searching the literature for methods to analyze the project progress of a startup funding program organized by the university. In doing so, I discovered that all except the milestone analysis and the milestone trend analysis actually work with the cost factor. For example, the "Earned Value Method" was frequently mentioned in the literature and my professor also said that it was possible to use the this methode without using costs.
My problem is that I can't find any evidence in the literature that this method could be implemented without costs. Do you have any suggestions? Or do you still know methods that I could use to measure project progress (without the cost factor of course)?
Kind Regards,
Samuel
Hi Sam,
By definition, a project is planned, which means that the efforts are somehow predefined. In the literature you will find numerous definitions for a project, but planning is always an important aspect. This can refer to the duration and/or the amount of labour. I'm almost sure that there are also costs for your project. After all, someone has to do something and work is never free. I would suggest that you think about this again.
Best,
Andrea
This can refer to the duration and/or the amount of labour. I'm almost sure that there are also costs for your project. After all, someone has to do something and work is never free. I would suggest that you think about this again.
Best, Jose
Costs are merely a unit. Earned value theory can be applied with any measurable unit. Labor hours as mentioned above by Andrea is one common unit. I've also seen EVA used with material quantities and in linear construction projects like pipelines, distance along the alignment.
In Holger Timinger's book, Book Modernes Projektmanagement
you find evidence p. 106, that EVA can also be calculated with other resource data than costs, e.g. working hours. You will then have to work consistently with this measure, thus planned working hours (PV), actual working hours (AC), and working hours that reflect the actual work completed (EV).
In general, it depends on how your project is planned and implemented. If you work in a traditional, plan-based environment, for project progress, you could either look at time separately (as you identified e.g. milestone trend analysis), costs or expenditure (could also be work hours) or what amount of the desired work is already done, so what scope is already completed. For all three dimensions, it is assumed you base your evaluation of progress on a comparison of actual to plan. Looking at scope alone, for all work packages you could choose a way to evaluate progress e.g. percentage complete based on including the remaining effort estimate, or in case of countable objects, objects finished towards objects in total. The combination of all three dimensions is united in the Earned Value Analysis. The applicability of EVA depends on the quality of your time-phased plan and the accuracy and availability of actual data. I regard ISO 21508:2018 a valuable source on requirements for implementing Earned Value Management. In case you work in more volatile, agile project environment, there are e.g. in Scrum burn-down or burn-up charts used to visualize progress.
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