Earned value management and Prince2

This is a joint presentation by APM London Branch, Earned Value Specific Interest Group (SIG) and the Programme Management SIG explaining how Earned Value Management (EVM) can be applied to PRINCE2 structured projects, enabling the effective tracking of project delivery status and estimate to complete.

This presentation is suitable for project management professionals at intermediate or advanced levels of experience.The cost includes a copy of the APM Earned Value Guidelines for each delegate.

Earned value management is a project control process based on a structured approach to planning, cost collection and performance measurement. It facilitates the integration of project scope, time and cost objectives, and the establishment of a baseline plan for performance measurement.

APM Body of Knowledge, 5th Edition

To be able to provide estimates to complete in time and cost terms requires a proven project management system that brings together time, cost, productivity metrics and techniques as well as statistical analysis of prior information. Earned Value Management is such a technique.

PRINCE2 is a structured method for project management, which is principles-based. The principles represent the guiding obligations and good practices which determine whether the project is genuinely being managed using PRINCE2. They can be summarized as:

• Continued business justification
• Learn from experience
• Defined roles and responsibilities
• Manage by stages
• Manage by exception
• Focus of products tailored to suit the project environment

PRINCE2 and EVM have a great deal in common. They are both:

• Relevant to the management of projects
• Structured in their approaches
• Based on having a plan as the basis for monitoring and control
• Focussed on time, cost and scope objectives
• Expecting project managers to monitor against the agreed plan and to take control based on the results of this monitoring.

The presentation given sets out to describe how the ten outputs of the EVM processes are aligned to the PRINCE2 processes and then to illustrate how these outputs enable the project manager to produce a realistic forecast for the project time and cost objectives.

Steve Wake is a management consultant, specialising in earned value project management. He provides advice, guidance, and training. He is the Chairman of the APM Earned Value Management and Planning Specific Interest Groups and director of Steve Wake Projects, Ltd. He chairs, speaks, writes, and is an accomplished event organiser. He is seen as a UK expert and champion of the subject of earned value. He established reciprocity between the US ANSI EV guideline and the APM Earned Value guideline.

Steve was also an APM Board member and chaired the APM SIG-Steering Group with oversight of all APM's SIG activity and strategy. He was a member of the APM Knowledge Directorate and participated on the APM Nominations committee. In 2009, he helped found the EVA-Europe initiative, chaired the first conference at CERN Geneva and he is a member of the core author group for the PMI Second Edition of the Practice Standard for Earned Value Management. He is also APMG chief examiner for earned value qualifications. In 2011 he started Earned Value International Advisory Panel (EVIAP) to lobby internationally for an Earned Value ISO and also organised the Synergy 2011 conference programme for PMI UK.

John Chapman is programme director for Touchstone a business solutions company. He is the author of Project and Programme Accounting, contributor to Managing Successful Programmes, 1st Edition, and a member of the authoring group of the Gower handbook of Programme Management. John is treasurer of the Programme Management Specific Interest Group of the Association for Project Management.

He is an experienced programme director, programme manager, project director and project manager; having led programmes of business change, implemented financial accounting and enterprise solutions, spend control systems, and document management solutions. His project experience includes various international implementations delivering solutions that are as far as Tahiti, South East Asia, as well as the middle east and North America. He has a BSc (Hons) degree in Computing Science and is a Microsoft Certified Professional in the SureStep methodology.

His professional qualifications include being a full Member of the Institute of Directors (MIoD), a Member of the Association for Project Management (MAPM) and a Fellow of the Institute of Sales and Marketing Management (FInstSMM).