Earned Value Management at NASA: An Integrated, Lightweight Solution

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Earned Value Management at NASA: An Integrated, Lightweight Solution

Provide one (1) sample of a descriptive statement and one (1) sample of a prescriptive statement from the case study descriptions.

One (1) sample of a descriptive statement from the case study descriptions

“Earned Value Management (EVM) is a management technique that allows project managers to determine the true cost and schedule variance between plan and material work accomplished of a given project at any time.”

One (1) sample of a prescriptive statement from the case study descriptions

“A key benefit of EVM is that it serves as an early-warning system against cost overruns and schedule delays.”

Examine three (3):

Goals for this case study

Provision of a lightweight tool that allows for applicability of measuring earned value performance (Song, 2010).

Enablement of managers to produce monthly EVM reports that account for their performance.

Incorporate managers in the use of EVM tool in their occasional activities.

Obstacles for this case study

Before and after managers had undergone training sessions to use EVM systems, it still became hard to define a consistent baseline to work with.

Used as a monthly report tool, managers found it hard to make reports risks resulting from lack of knowledge on how to use a consistent baseline to include any additional information in their reports.

Compared to PMT systems that are designed to support and produce high custom reports, EVM systems do not meet the standards and as such, they are not used in producing high custom reports.

Alternative obstacle resolutions for this case study

EVM systems have been built on a platform that support and run against all elements of individual WBS.

EVM systems have been built with the ability to provide room for managers to incorporate any additional information that can be used to produce a monthly report and minimize risks associated with additional information (Practice standard for earned value management, 2011).

PMT systems have been built with the ability to support and produce high custom reports and where EVM systems fail to meet the huge demand, PMT systems are used instead.

Identify five (5) normal and abnormal scenarios for this case as-is.

Normal Case Scenarios

Any person can use the system and once knowledge is instilled in managers on the use of EVM, it becomes a fundamental system to use

The use of EVM system incorporates comparing two more numbers with the stated point value in time as planned by Budgeted Costs for Work Scheduled (BCWS)

There is integration of the scheduled and time-phased budget information to provide baseline for a planned consistent performance.

There is the incorporation of the phasing plan to produce a monthly report that is in line with NASA’s accounting system.

There is collaboration of Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) elements to facilitate for accountability of sub projects on a timely manner.

Abnormal Case Scenarios

Difficulties in practices as well as inadequacy of EVM systems make it hard for them to be used.

Lack of a consistent baseline resulted in all projects achieving green for an inefficient system.

There were difficulties in measuring performance because of problems in the accounting systems.

Due to the systems weaknesses, there were huge amounts of works that were left unattended (Earned Value Management, 2005).

The systems weaknesses resulted into unassigned resources that were out of order activities as well as logic.

Determine five (5) requirements that might need to be prioritized in view of resource limitations.

Standardizing EVM system to user acceptance as well as minimizing costs

Use flexible tools that allow for changes

Ensure that the system implemented is scalable

Ensure that the system is highly reusable

Make sure that the EVM system implemented has a high usability

References

Earned Value Management. (2005). Hinjewadi, Pune, India: PELCON, Compulink Systems.

Practice standard for earned value management (2nd ed.). (2011). Newtown Square, Pa.: Project

Management Institute.

Song, L. (2010). Earned value management: A global and cross-industry perspective on current

EVM practice. Newtown Square, Pa.: Project Management Institute.