Earned Value Calculation Review
June 5, 2004 Glenn Booker
I’m providing a review of the earned value calculations, because a few people are having trouble
with it, and it’s especially important for those continuing with INFO637.
1. First use your proxies to determine the planned amount of time for each task (the top half
of form N39 or C39).
2. Generate your B0, B1, and Range based on the history of planned and actual totals for
previous assignments.
3. Also on C39/N39, determine the revised estimate for the total time needed for this set of
tasks. This is (T) on page 120’s example.
4. The Total Plan value at the bottom of N14 and C47 should both be equal to (T).
5. Plan – Minutes: Adjust the amount of planned time for each Task (Plan Minutes) so that
they add up to (T). Usually this would be done by multiplying each task’s time by
(T)/(unadjusted planned total time (e.g. P)). Round each time to the nearest minute. In
the example below, it’s assumed we’ve already done this to get the Minutes column
shown.
6. Plan – Planned Value: The Planned Value for each task should be the percent that task’s
time takes of all tasks for the week. For task #3 below, the Planned Value of 24.0 is from
120/500*100. (The “*100” to make percent.)
7. Plan – Cumulative Min: The Cumulative Min(utes) is adding the times for each task.
The first entry is the time for the first task, 50 minutes. The second is the previous
Cumulative Min plus 40. The third is 90+120 = 210. And so on.
The last Cumulative Minutes should equal the Plan Minutes at the bottom of the third
column (500).
Table C47 – INFO 636 Week i Task Planning
Student
Project
Your name
INFO 636 Week i
#
Task
Name
1
2
3
4
5
6
Discussion
Posting
Reading
Assignment1
Assignment2
Admin
Totals
Date
Instructor
Plan
Actual
Minut
es
Planned
Value
Cumul
ative
Min
Cumulative
Planned
Value
50
40
120
140
90
60
10.0
8.0
24.0
28.0
18.0
12.0
50
90
210
350
440
500
10.0
18.0
42.0
70.0
88.0
100.0
500
<date>
Booker
100
1
Date
Plan
31-May
31-May
27-May
31-May
31-May
29-May
Date Actual
Earned
Value
Cumulati
ve
Earned
Value
27-May
31-May
30-May
28-May
31-May
30-May
10.0
8.0
24.0
28.0
18.0
12.0
10.0
18.0
42.0
70.0
88.0
100.0
8. Plan – Cumulative Planned Value: The Cumulative Planned Value (CPV) is adding the
Planned Value down the rows, just like Cumulative Minutes. The first entry is just the
planned value of the first task, 10. The second entry is the previous CPV (10), plus 8.0
for the second task. The third is the previous CPV (18) plus 24.0 for the third task,
totaling 42. And so on.
The last CPV should be 100, matching the bottom entry for the Planned Value column.
9. Plan – Date Plan: The Date Plan column is the calendar day you plan to perform that
task. (Yes, we’re assuming that tasks are small enough you could do each in one day or
less, or at least give the date you plan to start that task.)
At this point, all of the tasks have been defined in the plan. The columns Planned Value and
Date Plan could be sorted by date to give a breakdown of how much work (planned value) you
expect to accomplish each calendar day. This turns into data for form C49, the schedule for your
work. But before we jump to that, let’s finish C47.
After you have completed the work for the week, you can fill in the Actual section for C47.
10. Actual – Date Actual: Based on your Time Log (C16), for each task, enter the date you
actually did the work under the Date Actual column. Notice that this form keeps the
tasks listed in the order planned, not in the chronological order you actually did them, so
the Date Actual entries might jump forward and backward in time. That’s okay.
11. Actual – Earned Value; The Earned Value for each task is generally exactly the amount
you planned for the task under the Planned Value column, regardless of how long it
actually took you to do that task. (The inherant value of the work doesn’t change even if
it took you more or less time to accomplish it.)
The only exception is if there’s a change in the scope of the task, which we’ll address
later for the Adjusted Earned Value concept.
12. Actual – Cumulative Earned Value: Then the Cumulative Earned Value is calculated
just like the Cumulative Planned Value. (Hint: if the Earned Value column is the same as
Planned Value, then the Cumulative Earned Value will be the same as the Cumulative
Planned Value.)
Again, the last entry for Cumulative Earned Value is generally 100.
Longer Duration Tasks
What if a task actually takes more than one day? Or is planned for more than one day?
Two options:
1) You could avoid the problem, and define smaller tasks. 
2) Or make a double entry for the task to show two values for Date Plan and/or Date Actual (the
latter shown below). Unless the amount of time spent on the task is really lopsided toward one
day or the other (e.g. 30 minutes one day, and 120 minutes the other), it’s easiest to just use the
50/50 rule for earned value. Give yourself 50% of the task’s planned or earned value on each
day. This is based on the earned value rule which gives 50% of value for starting the task, and
50% for finishing it.
If you have a really lopsided amount of work for each day, or if the task takes three days or
more, then you can decide on a fair proportion of the task’s value to be assigned to each day.
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C47 Excerpt, With Actual Task Taking Two Days
#
Name
Minut
es
Planned
Value
Cumul
ative
Min
Cumulative
Planned
Value
Date
Plan
1
2
3
4
4.1
5
6
Discussion
Posting
Reading
Assignment1
Assignment1
Assignment2
Admin
50
40
120
140
10.0
8.0
24.0
28.0
50
90
210
350
10.0
18.0
42.0
70.0
31-May
31-May
27-May
31-May
90
60
18.0
12.0
440
500
88.0
100.0
31-May
29-May
Date Actual
Earned
Value
Cumulati
ve
Earned
Value
27-May
31-May
30-May
28-May
29-May
31-May
30-May
10.0
8.0
24.0
14.0
14.0
18.0
12.0
10.0
18.0
42.0
56.0
70.0
88.0
100.0
Notice in the above example that the split task originally had planned value of 28.0, which was
split into 14 and 14 according to the 50/50 rule. The Cumulative Earned Value was adjusted
accordingly.
This completes form C47. Now let’s review form C49.
Form C49 – Schedule Plan
Note about changes to the form: In the original form, it refers to weeks and hours.
For the short task durations here, we change those to days and minutes.
Form C49 looks at the intended activities from a schedule perspective, not individual tasks. As a
result, tasks which are {planned to happen on the same day}, or {actually happen on the same
day}, get added together in terms of the time spent doing them, and the amount of planned value
or earned value they have.
Now we pull out the Minutes, Planned Value and Date Plan from C47. Let’s use the revised C47
above.
Minutes
Planned Value
Date
Plan
50
40
120
140
10.0
8.0
24.0
28.0
31-May
31-May
27-May
31-May
90
60
18.0
12.0
31-May
29-May
3
Sort it by date, and get rid of the blank row.
Minutes
Planned Value
120
60
50
40
140
90
Date
Plan
24.0
12.0
10.0
8.0
28.0
18.0
27-May
29-May
31-May
31-May
31-May
31-May
Now we can start filling in C49’s Plan section.
1.
2.
3.
4.
Date Plan: The second column is the date the work should take place, in
chronological order. Since our actual and planned dates cover 27-May to 31-May, we
can use those as the range of Date Plan values.
Plan – Direct Mins: For each date, enter the number of Minutes from the above
table. Enter zero if no activity is planned for that date. If multiple tasks are planned
for the same date, add up their Minutes. So for 31-May, the value is 50+40+140+90
= 320 minutes.
Plan – Cumulative Minutes: Calculate cumulative minutes from the Direct Minutes
column, just like the previous cumulative examples.
Notice if there’s no planned activity for that day, the Cumulative Minutes stays the
same as the previous day.
The last entry should match the last Cumulative Min from C47.
Plan – Cumulative Planned Value: For each date, add up the total Planned Value
for all tasks to be done that date. Here, the total Planned Value for 31-May is
10+8+28+18 = 64, which accounts for the final CPV jump from 36.0 to 100.0.
Notice there’s no Planned Value column, so you have to calculate Cumulative
Planned Value as you go down the rows.
The final CPV should again be 100.
Table C49 –INFO 636 Week i Schedule Plan
Student
Project
Your name
INFO 636 Week i
Day
Date
Direct
No.
Plan
Mins
1
2
3
4
5
27-May
28-May
29-May
30-May
31-May
120
0
60
0
320
Plan
Cumulativ
e
Minutes
120
120
180
180
500
Date
Instructor
Cumulativ
e
Planned
Value
24.0
24.0
36.0
36.0
100.0
4
Direct
Mins
Actual
Cumulativ
e
Minutes
<date>
Booker
Cumulativ
e
Earned
Value
Adjusted
Earned
Value
Now calculate the actual schedule plan. Go back to the revised C47, and copy the Date Actual
and Earned Value columns.
Date Actual
Earned Value
27-May
31-May
30-May
28-May
29-May
31-May
30-May
10.0
8.0
24.0
14.0
14.0
18.0
12.0
We also need the actual times for each task, which we get from the Time Log. Add a column to
show them; call it Actual Time below. (These numbers are, of course, fake.)
Date Actual
Earned Value
27-May
31-May
30-May
28-May
29-May
31-May
30-May
10.0
8.0
24.0
14.0
14.0
18.0
12.0
Actual Time
62
26
144
90
97
101
56
Sort by date, and remove blank lines if there were any.
Date Actual
Earned Value
27-May
28-May
29-May
30-May
30-May
31-May
31-May
10.0
14.0
14.0
24.0
12.0
8.0
18.0
Actual Time
62
90
97
144
56
26
101
Now we can fill in the rest of C49. See next page for results.
5.
6.
7.
Actual - Direct Mins: Add the Actual Time for each day for all tasks worked on that
day. So for 30-May, the Direct Mins is 144+56=200, and for 31-May it’s
26+101=127.
Actual - Cumulative Minutes: This is the cumulative of Direct Mins.
The last entry should match the Actual Total on N14.
Actual - Cumulative Earned Value: Like CPV, we have to add the cumulative
Earned Value for each date without the earned value shown for each date. So for
example, the result for 30-May is the sum of the previous CEV of 38.0, plus the
amount of Earned Value for 30-May, 24.0+12.0, for a total of 74.0 (38+24+12).
The last Cumulative Earned Value should be 100 in most cases.
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8.
Adjusted Earned Value: See example later. Usually you can leave this column
blank, if there were no additional tasks identified during the week, or changes to the
scope of existing tasks.
Table C49 –INFO 636 Week i Schedule Plan
Student
Project
Your name
INFO 636 Week i
Day
Date
Direct
No.
Plan
Mins
1
2
3
4
5
27-May
28-May
29-May
30-May
31-May
120
0
60
0
320
Plan
Cumulativ
e
Minutes
120
120
180
180
500
Date
Instructor
Cumulativ
e
Planned
Value
24.0
24.0
36.0
36.0
100.0
Direct
Mins
62
90
97
200
127
Actual
Cumulativ
e
Minutes
62
152
249
449
576
<date>
Booker
Cumulativ
e
Earned
Value
10.0
24.0
38.0
74.0
100.0
Adjusted
Earned
Value
Notice that the Plan – Cumulative Earned Value and Actual – Cumulative Earned Value columns
on C49 generally DON’T match, unless you stuck very closely to the plan. More precisely,
they won’t match unless every task was done on the date planned.
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Adjusted Earned Value
Adjusted Earned Value is used to account for two possible types of changes during a project:
1) A task substantially changed value after you started it (e.g. it is much easier or more
difficult than expected)
2) New task(s) had to be added after the work was started. This could result from leaving
something out of the original plan, or realizing partway through that additional work was
required (e.g. a new module had to be written that wasn’t expected, or a new section was
needed in a report).
The book example is on pages 182-183, and Table 6.19 (pp. 192-193).
Even though adjusted earned value is a result of changes in individual tasks (such as adding new
tasks or changing the scope of existing tasks), in form C49 it is an adjustment to the cumulative
earned value.
To calculate adjusted earned value:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Find the previous planned value of all tasks. This should be 100, unless you’re
adjusting earned value more than once.
Find the new planned value of all tasks. This is generally more than 100, unless
you’re removing tasks from the scope of the project.
Find the ratio (previous planned value)/(new planned value).
Adjusted Earned Value: Multiply each entry in Actual – Cumulative Earned Value
by the ratio from step 3.
The last adjusted earned value should always, by definition, be 100.
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