Earned value calculations – SPI

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    • #5172
      Igor Camerieri
      Keymaster

      I have a project schedule that is using SPI to track the progress of the project. Everything is working fine with the exception of when a task starts early. On such a task, I would expect an SPI>1. However I am not getting any of the Earned Value variables to calculate (SPI =0 , BCWP = 0, BCWS=0) Is there something that I need to do in order to get credit for tasks that are ahead of schedule?

      Thanks

      Dave Kroll

    • #6874
      Igor Camerieri
      Keymaster

      I had some success using physical % complete to calculate earned value. I switched the this in the task information box in the advanced tab. I then had to re-baseline the task and then enter the physical % complete.

      I was able to see some values for tasks that occur in the future in the BCWP column. However this method did not work for every future task and the BCWP column does not always recalculate when updates to the physical % complete are made.

      I hope this sheds some light on my problem.

      Thank you in advance for your help!

      Dave Kroll

    • #6885
      Igor Camerieri
      Keymaster

      If I understand your situaiton correctly, then the likely cause of these values being 0 is that you are asking the program to apply calculations to an out of sequence task – an OOS task is one that starts earlier than scheduled. Best practice is to correct the logic, then run your EVM.

    • #9870
      Igor Camerieri
      Keymaster

      You have picked up an inconsistency in the way MS Project calculates Earned Value compared to the rest of the world, basically you can never be early.

      Suggestion – dont use the inbuilt fields and calculate everything yourself using custom fields, you can then trust them. EV is easy, take a Cost field (eg Cost 1), rename it “Calc EV” then use the formula = Baseline Cost * % Complete / 100. Summaries should calculate using “Sum”. You can then calculate CPI and SPI similarly using number fields and trust the content.

      1st published in my white paper “Simple Earned Value” on http://www.coreconsulting.com.au under the innovations, white papers section.

      Have fun, hope that helps

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