Special Edition Using Microsoft® Project 2002

Analyzing Performance with Earned Value Analysis

As discussed in the preceding sections, one way to analyze the status of a project is to look at the cost, work, and finish variances. These measures tell you the impact of experience to date on the total work, total cost, and finish date of the project and its component tasks. One problem with using these variances for analysis is that when one is favorable and another is unfavorable, it’s difficult to tell which value is more critical to the project’s success. They are measured in different units: the cost variance is measured in dollars, the work variance is measured in hours, and the date variances are measured in time units.

Another problem with using the simple variances is that you can’t ...