Earned Value Management

Standard Time®
The earned value management features in Standard Time are not as robust as other project management software products (at the time of this article in 2008).  But, you may find them valuable to your organization.  We take a simpler approach to everything, and earned value is one of those things that has a simple implementation.  We'll take some time to discuss earned value, as it relates to Standard Time, in this article.  Other resources include scheduling a personal demo and downloading Standard Time.

Earned Value Management

What is earned value?
Earned value is a calculation that helps you gauge the health of your projects.  It helps you understand how much monetary value you have received for your work.  In other words, how many dollars, euros, pounds, etc.  It is based on the project budget and percent complete.  In other words, it is a percentage of your total budget.

How is earned value calculated?
As we alluded to earlier, earned value is obtained by multiplying total budget times percent complete.  EV = BAC * PC.  It is always a monetary value.  So, if you budget is $100,000 and you are 25% complete on the project, your earned value is $25,000.  In other words, since you are a quarter of the way done, you have earned $25K.  You may not have gotten the money yet, but it has been earned.

How does Standard Time support earned value?
Standard Time calculates the total project budget, and it calculates percent complete.  How does it do this?  Total salary costs are calculated by multiplying projected hours times salary rates.  Percent complete is calculated by comparing actual work to projected work.  It also multiplies actual hours times salary costs.

Actual value and earned value
In Standard Time, actual value and earned value are the same.  Any hours your employees work are multiplied times their salary rates, and that results in actual value (or earned value).

We hope we haven't confused you regarding earned value management.  Standard Time is a very simple product.  There are others with more robust computations, but they may not offer the other features you require.  You'll need to weigh these considerations.

Standard Time not only supports project management.  It has a timesheet, time off tracking, expense tracking, and client invoicing.  Earned value management is only a small part of what we attempt to do.  Therefore, it will not have the robust and overly technical treatment that others do.  But, maybe it will work for you.  Feel free to download it and give it a try.