What is Earned Value Analysis (EVA) in Project Scheduling?

Earned Value Analysis(EVA) provides a quantitative indication of progress. The project manager uses this method to track the project. Proponents of the earned value system claim that it works for every software project irrespective of the kind of work. As a part of this, there is an initial estimation of the total number of hours of doing this project, with every task being given an earned value which is based on its estimated percentage of the total effort. In simpler terms, a project manager will be able to determine, through a quantitative analysis, how much of the project is actually complete.

As a part of this process, the following steps are needed to be done:
- The BCWS (Budgeted Cost of Work Schedule) is evaluated for each task that is included in the project. This estimation is done in terms of person-hours or person-days(if the effort is much more than a few hours). So, for a given work task its BCWS is the effort.
- All the BCWS that are calculated for all the tasks are summed up to get a value called BAC(Budgeted Completion).
- The next variable BCWP(Budgeted Cost of Work Performed) is calculated. The method to calculate BCWP is by taking BCWS value for all the tasks that have been completed(at any point in the schedule).

In simple terms, the difference between BCWS and the BCWP is that BCWS is the estimate for all task that was supposed to be done, while BCWP is the summary of all the activities that were completed.

EVA compares the planned amount of work with what has actually been completed, to determine if cost, schedule, and work accomplished are progressing as planned. Work is earned or credited as it is completed.

Earned Value Analysis
- compares like terms and is quick to apply in practice.
- requires the ongoing measurement of the actual work done.
- tasks that have not been started or that have been completed are relatively easy to quantify in terms of earned value.