ENGR90037 Earned Value Management

ENGR90037 – 2024 Semester 2, Assignment 2 Part 1 – Project Management (EVM – Earned Value Management)

Due Date: 11:59 PM on Friday of Week 12 Worth 10 Marks

For Project Management, the “word limit” gives only a rough idea of the amount of work

expected.  As a rough guideline, you can plan to submit the tables of numerical values plus about one thousand words. This is equivalent to the amount of work for a 1250-1500 word essay.

You should not write a full essay.  The style. of writing should be brief and to the point, explaining the key points clearly to a senior manager.  Lists of dot points are fine.  Label your answers with the number of the question you are answering.

Marks will be awarded for:

• Demonstrating mastery of the lecture material. Make it obvious – use the terminology directly from the lectures to make the marker’s job easier.

•       Clarity and brevity, with answers well organized and clearly labelled, to make the marker’s job easier.

•       Include a title with:

Subject – ENGR90037

Title of your submission (Assignment 2.1 – Project Management)

Your name and Student ID, and the Date

Especially follow the principles of Academic Integrity.

Hypothetical Capstone Project

The purpose of this Assignment is to demonstrate your ability to manage a project that is running over time and over budget. Starting with your Capstone Project Baseline Plan, use your imagination to create a hypothetical Earned Value Management Report.  You are NOT required to get information you’re your team – the data may be made up from your own imagination.  If you have not already done  so, download a copy of the Simple Gantt Chart Spreadsheet (version 2.1) from the lecture on Reporting – Week 6.

Check the “Plan” Sheet, has the appropriate WBS, RACIX, and Budgeted Hours.  Ignore the columns for Supervisor and External Advisor and ignore the $ costs – this assignment will use your staff-hours of effort as “cost” .    Note that you do NOT have to fill in a report for each team member individually, instead you can enter hypothetical summary data in the “EVM Sheet” .

Important:  First, you will need to Unprotect the EVM Sheet.  Right click on the tab for the EVM Sheet at the bottom of the Excel window, then select “Unprotect Sheet” .

The first few columns should correspond to your Baseline Plan for your Capstone Project.  If necessary, simplify the plan to fit within the constraint of 20 tasks.  Enter hypothetical (that is, imaginary) data for the Actual Cost, Percent Complete on Reporting Day, and Status Indicators for every task.  Tasks that    have not been begun will have zero for Actual Cost and Percent Complete but may have a Status Indicator if a problem has been identified, according to your imagination.

Important:  The values of your Schedule Performance Index and Cost Performance Index on Reporting  Day must both be less than 1.  One of them (either one) must be approximately 0.6, and the other one   must be approximately 0.8.  This will provide a suitable management challenge for the purposes of this Assignment.  Let’s agree that “approximately” means “plus or minus 0.1”. If your indicators are not within the required range, the assignment will be almost pointless, which may result in a score below 50% for Assignment 2.1.  Adjust your hypothetical EVM numbers till you get the indices you want.

1. Numerical Analysis (4 Marks)

First you will need to provide a copy of your essential EVM data in your submission.  Do not include the headings because vertical formatting is messy in Word.    The columns that are required from the EVM  table have the following Headings:

Accountable – Name of the accountable team member

Planned Value per Task – The budget for staff-hours for each task

Planned % Complete at Close of Business (CoB) on Reporting Day

Actual Cost at CoB on Reporting Day (staff-hours) – Your hypothetical numbers

Percent Complete at COB on Reporting Day – Your hypothetical numbers

Status by Task for {Name of team member} – One column for each team member.

If a team member is not allocated to a task, their status indicator is zero.

Otherwise, enter -1, 0, 1, 2, or 3 according to your imagination.

Copy the values from the relevant columns of your EVM Table (don’t include the headings), and then Paste the values and formatting (Paste Special / Formatted Text) into a table like the one on the following page.  Do not use a screenshot or image – use text so it can be copied into a spreadsheet for marking.

Important: Your table will be copied into an Excel Spreadsheet for marking.  The columns must correspond exactly to the column headings above, and the rows must correspond to the tasks, in the order they are listed on the “Plan” Sheet.  Of course, the interpretation of the Status Indicators is the same as given in the “EVM” Sheet.  The colour coding of the Status Indicators (red, orange, yellow,  green, blue) will NOT be transferred from Excel to Word – that is of no importance.

Alice	33	100%	44	95%	3	0	3	3	0
Bob	75	100%	83	87%	0	1	3	0	3
Chin	57	100%	59	91%	2	0	2	3	0
Alice	79	100%	74	60%	-1	2	2	0	3
Bob	25	100%	25	48%	0	-1	2	1	0
Chin	67	0%	0	0%	1	0	0	0	0
Alice	123	0%	0	0%	0	-1	0	0	0
Bob	55	0%	0	0%	-1	-1	0	0	0
Chin	121	0%	0	0%	0	-1	0	0	0
Alice	35	0%	0	0%	0	-1	0	0	0

(a)   (2 Marks) Calculate the Performance Indices for your EVM data set, and calculate the key results of your “Do Nothing Forecast”, or “DNF” .  Present your answers in a table like the  following one:

Quantity on Reporting Day	Value
Planned Date of starting the Project (dd/mm/yy)
Planned Date of finishing the Project (dd/mm/yy)
Date of Reporting Day (dd/mm/yy)
Schedule Performance Index (%)
Cost Performance Index (%)
Forecast Duration (Workdays) from your DNF
Forecast Date of Completion from your DNF (dd/mm/yy)
Forecast Cost at Completion (staff-hours) from your DNF

Important: Your table of results must be text – not a screenshot.  This allows the marker to   copy it into a spreadsheet for marking.  Also remember that your Performance Indices must comply with the requirement that one is approximately 0.6 and the other one is approximately 0.8 (see the Section “Hypothetical Capstone Project” above)

(b)   (2 Marks) The first part of your project, from start up to Reporting day is termed “Part 1” .      The remaining time from the Reporting Day extending to the end of the project is termed    “Part 2” .   According to your hypothetical information, Part 1 has not progressed as well as   planned.  By improving performance on Part 2, it may be possible to keep the commitment to finish by the originally planned finish time, and on budget as originally planned.

Calculate the Workdays and Staff-hours remaining from the Baseline Plan.  Present your  answers in a table like the following one.  Note that it may prove impossible to achieve this degree of improvement in performance!

Part 2 –from Reporting Day to Planned Finish	Value
Workdays remaining according to the original plan
Staff-hours remaining from the original budget
Additional Earned Value Required in Part 2

2. Discussion (6 Marks)

Now imagine you are not a member of the Capstone team, instead you are a Project

Management specialist who has been brought in as a consultant to guide the project to the best possible result.

Assume you do NOT already know about the project – its objectives, stakeholders,

timelines, and everything else.  You will rely on the documents including the Baseline Plan    and the EVM report, including the data and calculations from Section 1 of this Assignment.

Section 2 of the assignment is your chance to demonstrate how well you have mastered all of the lecture materials.  Please remember to use the terminology, concepts, and methods from the lectures.

Use the following headings so that the marker can assess the appropriateness and completeness of your response to the challenge.  Remember that each part is worth one  mark only, so stick to the main points and be brief.  Obviously, don’t leave out essentials. You may go over the word limit by a reasonable amount if you need to, but marks will be lost for repetitive material, poor organization, and unclear expression.

(a) Key Background Information

State what is the key information you need from the available documents, and briefly explain why the information is essential.

(b) Situation Analysis

Briefly describe the present status in your own words and provide a plausible

account of the causes of the problems.  Were risks well managed?  Use your

imagination to come up with likely findings.  If (and only if) you consider financial or sustainability issues are relevant, you may include a very brief note on those topics.

(c) Accountable Forecast

Decide what you believe to be an acceptable and achievable “Accountable Forecast” – one that respects the originally contracted commitment while recognizing the ongoing challenges.

(d) Negotiation

Give your plan for negotiating with powerful stakeholders.  Who are they, and how   will you negotiate agreement?  Use your imagination to document the key points of a plausible agreed plan of action coming out of the negotiations.

(e) Motivation

How will you “sell” the agreed plan of action to the team.  Use your imagination and demonstrate your mastery of the two lectures that touched on motivation.

(f) Lessons Learned

Use your imagination to describe a plausible outcome for ultimate completion of the project.  Can you suggest what might go into a “Lessons Learned” report?