Project Control Definition

1.1 What Is Project Controls?

To understand the relationship between Project Controls and Earned Value Management, the purpose and function of Project Controls need to be understood. The Construction Industry Institute describes Project Controls as follows:

“Project Controls and Management Systems (PCMS) include the people, processes, and tools for the planning and execution of all phases, including, but not limited to Estimating, Cost Control, Planning, Scheduling, Change Management, Progressing, and Forecasting”.

“The potential for the success of a construction project is largely dependent upon the quality of the project controls system and the staff assigned because that function is really the eyes and ears of management”.

- Source: Construction

This baseline sets out the “plan” on how the project is expected to be executed (typically, on a month-to-month basis) to achieve its objective(s). As the project is being executed, progress and actual cost are measured against this time-phased baseline, which should clearly show whether the project is either ahead or behind schedule and whether the project is running over or under its cost budget. This baseline vs. progress reporting is an essential tool for reporting and communicating the overall project status to management.

In order for Project Controls to develop and maintain such a baseline, strong integration between a project’s scope, cost, schedule, and risk needs to be established and maintained throughout the project life-cycle.

Using such a baseline, Project Controls should be able to answer the following three fundamental questions:

• What is the Monetary Value of the Work Planned?

• What is the Monetary Value of the Work Earned?

• What is the Actual Cost of the Work Accomplished?

The answers should be available for incremental and cumulative

This combination of comprehensive planning, baseline maintenance, and Earned Value analysis provides the project team with earlier and better visibility of a project’s performance, compared to non-integrated methods of planning and control. This ability enhances the overall Project Managed value through decisions based on the use of Earned Value Management information.

1.3 Earned Value Management Guidelines and Fundamentals

The integration, planning, and progress reporting as explained in the previous section can be achieved by following defined EVM guidelines that were developed for optimum project planning and control.

Earned Value Management System ANSI 748 Standard includes 32 guidelines that provide the fundamentals in establishing and applying Earned Value Management. This standard was developed by the Government Electronics & Information Technology Association (GEIA) to ensure that contractors adhere to Department of Defense (DOD) EVM system requirements. After the release of the ANSI 748 standard, it was negatively received by the majority of contractors. One of the main reasons was that the guidelines were too complex. For the benefit of readers who are interested in the 32 guidelines, each of the guidelines is described in chapter