Measuring time. Improving project performance using earned value management (Q1034329)

In this book earned value management (EVM) systems are considered which deal with the controlling and adjusting of baseline project schedules during execution taking into account time and costs. Different performance measures are calculated in order to forecast the costs of a project and the remaining duration of a schedule. The book is divided into eight chapters dealing with the following topics. Chapter 1 gives an overview on earned value management, introduces the used performance indicators, and describes different methods to forecast the total duration of a project. In Chapter 2 the so-called \(p\)-factor approach to measure schedule adherence is discussed. In Chapter 3 a case-study for managing projects of an airport luggage handling system at Fabricom Airport Systems in Belgium is presented. In Chapter 4 Monte-Carlo simulation is used to generate uncertainties (activity durations, costs) for a project. Two simulation studies are performed in order to evaluate different forecast methods for the project duration and to test the relevance of the schedule adherence concept measured by the \(p\)-factor. Chapter 5 deals with time sensitivity and discusses the relation between forecast accuracy and project sensitivity. In Chapter 6 a further simulation study is presented which validates two alternative tracking methods (bottom-up, top-down). Finally, in Chapter 7 the software tool ProTrack is described; the book ends with a summary and conclusions in Chapter 8.