Evaluation plan
Our project has four main parts: the software package, the database, the
web site, and the documentation, all of which need a process for determination of
completion. For each part, we will have to have a different, yet comparable,
measurement of completion; hence, earned value will be used. If you refer to
Evaluation Plan spreadsheet, then you will see an example of the process for the
software package. The use of the GUI in the diagram is only for an example, in
actuality the lowest level tasks on the work breakdown chart will be used for the
earned value calculations.
How will earned value be calculated? First, each low level task will be
assigned some measurement according to the dominant aspect of that task. For
example, coding is given the measurement of KLOCs. In other words, the size of
a coded module will be represented in thousands of lines of code. Testing on the
other hand is measured by the number of test cases that must be run. Each
task’s complexity will be estimated according to its dominant measurable factor.
Going back to the coding example, each module will be assigned an estimation
on how many thousands of lines of code it will be once finished. Once all
estimations are in place, then for each task we will estimate the total time
required to reach the estimated complexity. With the coding example, we will
calculate the estimated time off of the estimated size by using the estimated
KLOCs per day a person can code. Then by dividing the estimated time for each
task by the overall sum, we will obtain a percentage stating how much of the
project is invested into each task. This percentage will be the value for that task.
Once a task is finished, we will state that we have earned that value, and from all
earned values we will be able to estimate the level of completion.