Earned Schedule   Earned Schedule - An extension to Earned Value Management
 
 
October - November - December 2009
Two presentations on Earned Schedule were made at the November International Integrated Program Management Conference held in Alexandria, VA.  Mr. Sohei Okamoto of the University of Nevada, Reno presented “Visualizing Cost and Duration Estimation Using Earned Schedule.”  The team of Michelle Jones, Jason Meyer, and Doug Flanagan, representing Booze Allen Hamilton, presented the results from their application of ES entitled, “Emerging Earned Value Management Technique, Earned Schedule.”
The first EVA conference held in Europe took place at CERN, the particle physics laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland.  Walt Lipke made three presentations concerning ES: 1) “Earned Schedule, schedule analysis from EVM measures”; 2) “Project Duration Forecasting, a comparison of EVM methods to ES”; 3) “Schedule Adherence, a useful measure for project management.”  Next year’s EVA Europe Conference is currently scheduled to occur November 2010 in Ghent, Belgium. More definitive announcements concerning this conference will be made in future updates.
At the Europe EVA conference Messrs Roland Horat and James Bulmer discussed the SuperTech Project Management software, EVENGINE. The software provides an integrated approach to managing project and financial performance.  At the conference, Mr. Horat and Mr. Bulmer approached Walt Lipke and Kym Henderson with the idea of incorporating ES into their product. Since the conference discussion significant progress has been made; an updated EVENGINE 6.6 version will be released at the PMI® Global Congress – Asia Pacific the end of February.  The SuperTech product and contact information is available at the EVM-ES Tools link.
Walt Lipke’s book Earned Schedule was published December 2009.  The book is available in print or as a download.  The printed version is $36 USD and the download is priced at $14 USD.  The book will become available through Amazon and other retailers by February 2010. Presently it is available for purchase at the following link http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=4480692.
A paper describing the application of Earned Schedule to a pipeline construction project was recently discovered.  The paper, “How does a new set of Earned Value Management schedule control work?  A case study in Iran,” was written by Morteza Shokri-Ghasabeh and Navid Akrami and published in the February 2009 issue of World Scientific and Engineering Academy and Society Transactions on Environment and Development.  The paper is excellent and describes the issue of overcoming resistance to the implementation of EVM.  The paper is available for download free from charge at http://www.wseas.us/e-library/transactions/environment/2009/28-836.pdf.
August - September 2009
Carl Rutigliano of BAE Systems contacted Walt Lipke this last May-June to discuss the incorporation of ES into BAE’s predictive analysis tools.  During the email exchanges, Walt discovered an error in the ES Calculator v2b which Carl was using for the BAE application.  Although the error would only occur under an anomalous condition, it has been corrected in version v2c; the revised calculator is available for download from the es calculator page.
Robert Van de Velde recently had his paper, “A Measure of Time,” published on-line at the Projects at Work website (www.ProjectsAtWork.com).  His paper discusses a real world application of the concept of Schedule Adherence.  Projects at Work has given us permission to make Robert’s paper available at the Papers page.
The paper, “Schedule Adherence …a useful measure for project management,” by Walt Lipke was published in 2009 Issue 3 (September) of The Measurable News.
Robert Ferguson of the Software Engineering Institute indicates he is preparing a Technical Report on leading indicators for project managers, which includes ES and Schedule Adherence. Publication of the SEI paper is expected sometime in November.
Dr. Gary Richardson, Project Management Program Coordinator at the University of Houston, has authored the book, Project Management Theory and Practice.  The book contains a discussion of ES and is presently listed on Amazon as being available in January of 2010. Amazon is taking pre-orders for Dr. Richardson’s book.
The International Journal of Project Management recently identified its top 25 “hottest” articles.  The listed articles spanned from December 1999 to July 2009.  The article “Prediction of Project Outcome: The application of statistical methods to earned value management and earned schedule performance indexes,” written by Lipke, Zwikael, Henderson, and Anbari, and published in May 2009, is 14th in the listing. The article is available from the Science Direct website (www.sciencedirect.com) for a fee of $31.50 USD.  Mr. Lipke has presented this paper at the 2007 Integrated Program Manag2ement Conference and the 2008 EVM World Conference.  Both presentations are freely available for download at the Presentations page.
Scott Crew of Administrative Controls Management, Inc. presented his paper, “Activity Duration-Based Schedule Progress and Prediction Metrics,” at the 53rd annual meeting of The Association for the Advancement of Cost Engineering.  In the paper, Mr. Crew explored his ideas for forecasting and the concept of applying ES calculations to a schedule that is not resource/cost loaded.  By using activity duration data instead of cost data, Mr. Crew compared his approach to ES, attempting to validate the schedule progress and schedule completion predicting capabilities of the resultant time-based metrics.  The paper is available through the purchase of the 2009 AACE Transactions (www.aacei.org/annualmeeting/2009/) at a charge of $110 USD.
At the upcoming 2009 Integrated Program Management Conference to be held 2-4 November in Alexandria, VA, there will be two presentations discussing ES. One is by Sohei Okamoto, a PhD student at the University of Nevada, who has developed a project management tool utilizing ES.  The second presentation is from Michelle Jones,  Jason Meyer, and Doug Flanagan of Booze Allen Hamilton.  Their presentation describes two case studies of the use of ES.  One study was in a government environment while the other was for a private business.
In late September, Walt Lipke submitted for publication the manuscript for a book on Earned Schedule.  When published the book will be available in paperback at retail outlets and can be purchased as an e-book, as well. It is estimated the ES book will become available in January 2010.
The first EVM conference to be held in Europe is planned to occur 25-26 November 2009.  The conference is hosted by the Geneva School of Business Administration (HEG) in collaboration with the European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN).  Several people who have been significant in the propagation of ES will be in attendance at the conference, including Kym Henderson (Australia), Steve Wake and Alex Davis (United Kingdom), Dr, Mario Vanhoucke and Stephan Vandevoorde (Belgium), and Walt Lipke (USA).  Information concerning the historic EVA-Europe conference may be obtained at http://www.eva-europe.eu/.
July 2009
The 14th annual United Kingdom EVA conference was held 8-11 June in London.  At the conference a presentation was made by Peter Hayward of BAE Systems, “Predicting the Future,” which contained a good discussion of ES.  The feedback received regarding Mr. Hayward’s presentation was that “…the ES demo was the easiest to understand that they had seen to date.”
Also at EVA 14, an ES Workshop, “Earned Schedule: Principles and Practice,” was held for the first time by someone other than Walt Lipke and Kym Henderson.  Alex Davis of the UK MOD and Mick Higgins of Thales Group hosted the workshop.  In the workshop ES was expanded into two new areas of application – Cost of Delay and Risk.  The presentation and the workshop materials are graciously made available on the Presentations page by the authors.
In late June, Stephan Vandevoorde (Belgium) observed that the Papers page did not include his paper written with Dr. Mario Vanhoucke, “Forecasting a Project’s Duration under Various Topological Structures.”  The paper was published in Issue 1 of the 2009 College of Performance Management publication The Measurable News.  The oversight has been corrected with the addition of the paper to the Papers page of the website.
Stephan Vandevoorde has made available for download from the Presentations page the Earned Schedule portion of his recent presentation, “Earned Value – A Practical Approach.”  Mr. Vandevoorde’s presentation, made June 23 at Boston University in Brussels, Belgium, was well received by the graduate level international students attending.
May - June 2009
In last month’s news it was reported that Kym Henderson is making available upon request his EVM-ES set of spreadsheets.  Since that time, Mr. Henderson has changed his email address.  If interested in obtaining his project management tool, please contact Mr. Henderson through his email: kym.henderson@gmail.com.
In discussion with a user of the v2 version of the Earned Schedule calculator a computation error was discovered.  The error occurs in the first period calculation and has been corrected in the version now posted on the es calculator page, ES Calculator v2c.
A paper published in the March 2009 issue of Projects and Profits was erroneously omitted from the last website update.  The paper, “The TCPI indicator: Transforming Project Performance,” by Walt Lipke has been added to the Papers page.
The activity level of the website requests has soared in May.  The number of requests for May has established a new record, 40459.
March - April 2009
Kym Henderson has consented to make available upon request his EVM-ES set of spreadsheets. The spreadsheets are an extensive collection of project management tools providing graphical output and analysis capability for variance, indexes and forecasting.  If interested in obtaining this project management tool, please contact Mr. Henderson through his email: kym.henderson@froggy.com.au.
The page for ES Terminology has been updated with a revised Table 2.  The acronym used for the To Complete Schedule Performance Index has been changed from TSPI(t) to reflect the current use of TSPI.
The description and link to the PMI Metrics Specific Interest Group webinar, "Earned Schedule - An Emerging Enhancement to Earned Value Management," conducted in 2007 has been added to the Concept Description.  The webinar link is included as a further extension to the readings recommended at the conclusion of the description.
The paper, “Prediction of project outcome, the application of statistical methods to Earned Value Management and Earned Schedule performance indexes,” was published in the May 2009 issue of the International Journal of Project Management.  The paper, co-authored by Walt Lipke, Dr. Ofer Zwikael, Kym Henderson and Dr. Frank Anbari, is available for purchase ($31.50 USD) from Science Direct website, www.sciencedirect.com.  The direct link to the article is provided on the Papers page.
Two articles by Walt Lipke, “The To Complete Performance Index …an expanded view” and “Project Duration Forecasting …a comparison of Earned Value Management methods to Earned Schedule,” have been published in the spring 2009 issue of The Measurable News.  Both papers are available for download from the Papers page.
At the PMI – Oklahoma City Chapter spring symposium held 30 April - 1 May in Norman, Oklahoma, Walt Lipke presented “Project Duration Forecasting …a comparison of EVM methods to ES.”  A pdf copy of the slides is available for download on the Presentations page.
The activity level of the website requests has remained high through March and April.  The month of March has established another new high for requests, 39338.  The number of requests for April, 34065, continues to show considerable interest in ES.
January - February 2009
Two major international projects report that they are working toward implementing ES, the derivative indicators and methods, into their project management practices.  One project is the Network Rail in London, while the other involves the development of a major oil field in Kazakhstan.  Both projects are extremely large with significant value and execution over a long duration.
Alex Davis, UK MoD, presented “Earned Schedule: Principles and Practice” at the Association for Project Management (APM) EVM & Risk Conference held in Glasgow, Scotland on 5 March. The presentation was made twice and was well attended in each session.  As reported by Mr. Davis considerable interest was shown in ES and its accompanying concept of schedule adherence.
At the 2009 Association for the Advancement of Cost Engineering (AACE) Symposium held 28 February in Long Beach, CA, Ray Stratton presented “Predicting Project Completion Date Using Earned Value Management.”  Mr. Stratton reports the ES forecasting method was well received by an audience of approximately 50.
At the 19 February meeting of the PMI – Valencia, Spain Chapter (http://www.pmi-valencia.org/), Dr. Diego Navarro made a presentation on ES.  Dr. Navarro indicates the 30 attendees were mostly EVM practitioners and that they displayed enthusiasm for the ES concept and methods.
More evidence has come forth with regard to ES being included in university coursework.  Dr. Diego Navarro reported last month that he presented ES to master’s level students at the University of Valencia, Spain.  In the past there has been evidence of the ES concepts being taught at the George Washington University.  Dr. Mario Vanhoucke at the University of Ghent in Belgium has performed a considerable amount of research on ES and reports ES is taught in several of his courses. Likewise, Dr. Ofer Zwikael has indicated that he instructs ES to his students at the Australian National University.
The v1 and v2 versions of the ES calculator have been updated to v1a and v2b, respectively.  The headings of the first two columns on the ES calc sheets have been changed from BCWP and BCWS to the modern terminology of EV and PV.
The website link EVM Time Forecasting has been updated with references to research evidence indicating ES is a superior forecasting method.
The activity level of the website requests has remained high through January and February.  In fact, February – the shortest month – has registered a new record for requests, 37317.  The February amount exceeds the former record month of April 2008 by 2407.  The number of requests for January, 33020, showed considerable interest in ES, as well.  Over 29 gigabytes of data have been downloaded from the website over the time of operation, which began in February of 2006, with two gigabytes occurring in the last two months.
 
Introductory Video
Concept Description
ES Terminology
ES Enhances EVM
EVM Time Forecasting
Contacts
Training Sources
Sites of Interest
EVM - ES Tools
ES Book
ES Book (Translations)
ES Awards
Copyrights & Trademarks
PCA Interview
PC Podcast