Whenever someone sets out to start a project, they run it blind as it is hard to tell whether what was planned is happening. Running a project requires a lot of attention, making it hard for managers to concentrate on specific areas of it. As a result, faults are identified at the execution phase when enormous time and money have been spent. The occurrences of problems as the projects develop result in a failed job. Therefore, project managers need to be able to keep track of these problems and deal with them appropriately to not only avoids failed jobs but also wasted time and money ( Bhosekar, & Vyas, 2012) . Thankfully, there are performance measurement systems that can be deployed in an organization to ensure efficiency.
Earned Value Analysis is one of the highly recommended performance measurement systems in the market today. EVA uses a specific technique to balance gains and losses while maximizing the gains. To do so, EVA integrates costs, progress, and schedule (time) to bring about the smooth running of operation in project management ( Bryde, Unterhitzenberger, & Joby, 2018) . This program measures performance quantitatively in response to or from set budgets and schedules. In addition, EVA operates on the basis that the value of work is equivalent to the money set to complete it. Therefore, to accurately measure all the variables and still determine project progress, EVA utilizes three crucial terminologies.
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First is the Planned Value (PV), and this is a set budget of work to be fully done at a specific time. It is also referred as Budgeted Cost of Work Scheduled (BCWS). The second one is the Actual Cost (AC), and this refers to the money spent on the work done within a given time. It may also be referred to as the Actual Cost for Work Performed (ACWP) (Lukas & Cce, 2008). The other terminology is the Earned Value (EV), which is the budget cost for work completed in a given period. Earned value is determined by multiplication of the project’s whole budget by the percentage of the project at that time. By integrating the most fundamental parts of a project, EVA helps project managers to understand whether what they planned for is happening as they planned.
Due to its immense good attributes, EVA has skyrocketed in its demand both in organizational, local, and government institutions. This increased demand is a result of its vast benefit in running a project. Firstly, EVA helps identify deviations or faults in a project at the initial stages, which allows time for corrective measures ( Mohamed, & Sameh, 2018) . Whenever wrong data is entered into the system, EVA detects it and makes the appropriate changes. In addition, mistakes related to assumptions that were never considered in the mapping of the project could be identified and rectified if necessary. By so doing, EVA allows easy and fast de-budding of mistakes, which results in easy consistency analysis of data (Valle& Soares , 2006). The ability to detect wrong information and alert the manager allows time for negotiations necessarily for decision making.
Secondly, EVA monitors project progress and compares it with planned progress. To determine work progress in an environment where the use of a sophisticated performance measurement system is complicated ( Bryde, Unterhitzenberger, & Joby, 2018) . In such an environment, employees, as well as the employers, use qualitative measures to evaluate progress. For instance, when asked about work progress, employees answer with expressions such as, “I am almost done,” I am half-way through.” The critical point such institutions that spend vast sums of money trying to get an exact number need to know is that work progress is an estimate. Consequently, this estimate can accurately be identified in EVA through quantitative measures (Lukas & Cce, 2008). By understanding that measuring is an estimate, EVA waits until all the work packages have rolled the project level and assess the work progress, as an error in one package tends to be cancelled by another one.
Additionally, EVA can use earned value to compare the cost and schedule of the project process and the planned progress. For instance, when a team earns less that it is scheduled to accomplish, that project is lagging. Further, if the budget of the work done is higher than the actual cost for the work, then the project is overspending ( Moradi, Mousavi, & Vahdani, 2017) . Therefore, EVA has enormous gains in an institution as it helps understand whether a project is over or under-budgeted, ahead or behind schedule, and cost and schedule performance.
Thirdly, EVA helps project managers to achieve excellent visibility and control of all the activities about the project. As earlier stated, keeping an eye on majorly the performance and progress of a project could be very different following the many other thins managers need to attend ( Moradi, Mousavi, & Vahdani, 2017) . However, EVA has changed this circumstance. This program provides crucial information at the project level that can be used for managing daily runnings while collecting, monitoring, and presenting vital information about the whole project performance. As a result, managers get a complete picture of early or late delivery and over or under spendings.
Moreover, EVA has an essential benefit of making estimates to and at the completion of a project. The program assesses overall cost of the projects and the progress at different points in time ( Mohamed, & Sameh, 2018) . For instance, EVA was applied in the construction of the Monica Park Project. In this project, the program provided alternatives on which activities to take and which to forgo, allowing scope change management that kept the final budget under control (Valle & Soares , 2006). By reducing several activities, EVA managed to save money used to fit other overrun costs. As a result, this project finished on time and budget.
Despite the revolutionary change and the fantastic benefits EVA has brought on handling projects, it still has its limitations. Firstly, EVA does not ensure the quality of the product. This program operates on the data it is fed. Also, it prioritizes scheduling and budgeting in a project. However, for a project to be great, it requires much more than those two primary qualities of EVA. An excellent project needs to be able to meet customers’ needs; a quality EVA cannot guarantee as it operated only on the information given and does not contain documented requirements.
Secondly, EVA functions effectively only when fed with accurate data. Thus, if the information entered does not include actual costs, then the actual progress and performance will not be reflected in the program. For example, when the budget is not correctly estimated due to miscommunication, wrong rates, or quantity errors. The people operating it need to ensure that no critical data is missing as it would result in misleading output. This discovery goes to show that EVA is useless without accurate information ( Chen, et al., 2016 ). Further, the running and operation of EVA are not so simple at it needs a context. The clearer one communicates EVA; the better one would be at calculating it. The assumption that because you know, everyone would understand is misleading. Thus, to present the context of a project in EVA, one ought to speak clearly.
Lastly, EVA can fail to function correctly if the change management is not used ot is ineffective. Just as most of the project, change management should be worked upon at the project plan along with strategies for tackling scope and variance changes (Lukas& Cce, 2008). Additionally, the teams should be on the lookout for changes that occur but fail to be recognized. This scenario occurs when team members decide to add scope items in an attempt to improve the quality without realizing that it would add cost and time ( Moradi, Mousavi, & Vahdani, 2017) . Thus, before adding anything that was not on the project plan, negotiations need to be made, and a decision reached.
In summary, EVA is a revolutionary machine that has brought about a much-needed change in handling projects. By integrating schedules, progress, and cost, EVA has made a cumbersome project management process way more manageable. In addition, this program has a tone of benefits that attract people to deploy it in their projects ( Chen, et al., 2016 ). First, it can identify mistakes early in the project to eliminate backlashes and issues that may appear later in the project. Also, EVA can be used in monitoring the progress of the project and make comparison with the planned project. Further, this program offers crucial pieces of information that can enable project managers to continue with their daily activities while receiving project progress ( Bhosekar, & Vyas, 2012) . However, in spite of all the benefits, EVA cannot solve everything and experiences some faults. They include the inability to guarantee the quality, its uselessness without accurate information, its dire need for context, and its inability to function correctly if or when change management is missing or ineffective.
References
Bryde, D., Unterhitzenberger, C., & Joby, R. (2018). Conditions of success for earned value
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Lukas, M. J. A., & Cce, P. (2008). EVM. 01 Earned Value Analysis–Why it Doesn’t
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Bhosekar, S. K., & Vyas, G. (2012). Cost controlling using earned value analysis in construction industries. International Journal of Engineering and Innovative Technology , 1 (4), 324-332. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Gayatri_Vyas2/publication/265285339_Cost_Controlling_Using_Earned_Value_Analysis_in_Construction_Industries/links/553b16c50cf2c415bb08ffcf/Cost-Controlling-Using-Earned-Value-Analysis-in-Construction-Industries.pdf
Bryde, D., Unterhitzenberger, C., & Joby, R. (2018). Conditions of success for earned value analysis in projects. International Journal of Project Management , 36 (3), 474-484. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0263786317303083
Mohamed, M., & Sameh, E. S. (2018). CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS FOR EARNED VALUE ANALYSIS IN MANAGING CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS. Project Management Development–Practice and Perspectives , 59. http://dspace.lu.lv/dspace/bitstream/handle/7/48980/2018_Conference_on_project_management_proceeding.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y#page=59
Chen, H. L., Chen, W. T., & Lin, Y. L. (2016). Earned value project management: Improving the predictive power of planned value. International Journal of Project Management , 34 (1), 22-29. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0263786315001477
Moradi, N., Mousavi, S. M., & Vahdani, B. (2017). An earned value model with risk analysis for project management under uncertain conditions. Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems , 32 (1), 97-113.
