Earning Value With Work Packages
It was this morning.
I was leafing through some old notes of mine on Work Packages, and yet again, it occurred to me that this was a great place to start becoming confident with Earned Value.
I have always included Earned Value Management (EVM) within my project management training courses, as it is such a gem of a technique that gives peerless control to the project manager – Yet there was always some excuse to fall back into old habits.
You know the sort of thing, “give me a report on your progress at the end of the week and let me know the cost of what you’ve done”
Shoddy Job PM.
I also remember the old UK phrase “Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves”
Ignoring costs like management overhead, tools equipment and materials, the Work Package is ripe for harnessing earned value.
In a perfect world, you would apply earned value to the whole of the project.
But say you do not.
Is it a lost cause? No, it’s not.
See, you can capture your management overhead costs as a separate line item.
The Work Package
Most of your spending within a stage, will be done on creating the products. And these will be at the lowest hierarchical level within a stage – yet they consume most of the cost.
If you can square the circle of Work Package cost against true progress, then you will have tamed 80% of project control.
The latest versions of a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), always state that products or deliverables, sit at the top, and activities or tasks, sit at the bottom from a hierarchical perspective.
A product or a deliverable has absolutely no ambiguity.
It is either one hundred percent complete – Or is not.
Just perfect for an immovable earned value milestone.
So, I asked myself, how hard would it be to define a package of work before giving it out to your specialist team, and agree when the products or sub-products (The parts that make up a product) will be completed.
You think it through in reverse order.
PRINCE2 has even provided you with a perfect template with earned value in mind.
It is called the Product Checklist
All YOU must do is populate it with key progress milestones relating back to the products that will be created within each Work Package.
First define the product using the PRINCE2 Product Description, and then brainstorm the tasks and resources needed to complete it.
These tasks and resources will include the activities used to test, quality check, and approve each product.
You’ve already got The Engine of Earned Value Management – Right There…
Even if you hard-coded the earned value elements, it would be the work of minutes to determine the real progress on your work package.
A product is either 100% pregnant – Or it’s not!
You really should check out the two videos that I have created to use and apply earned value –
Microsoft Project
I love the 2010 version, it’s easy to use and has all the hooks you need…
Can you see from the graphic below how easy it would be to identify when a product is truly complete, and how you could apply earned value to the summary bars or their tasks?
What a great planning and control tool this is. It’s the world’s most popular project management application – If you’re not already using it then you really should jump on over here:
I can guarantee you one thing, once you start using earned value management at a simple level to provide rock solid control and forecast of your Work Packages – you’ll never go back!
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