Tracking Earned Value Management

By Teresa Carlson, Microsoft Vice President of U.S. Federal Government Sales

We’ve got a team at EVM World 2009 this week showcasing a new, open source application they created to help the DoD and its contractors streamline compliance with earned value management reporting requirements. Alban de Bergevin, Portfolio and EPM Strategist, heads the Microsoft team that created the application and led them through the process of turning it into a solution.

A few words from Alban de Bergevin, Portfolio and EPM Strategist…

Last fall, we began working with the Department of Defense (DoD) to help them and their contractors meet defense contract management agency standardization guidelines for tracking earned value management (EVM). This measurement combines schedule performance and cost performance to determine the ultimate value of the project based on the money spent.

Measuring cost performance and project value is tough for anyone to manage and even more so for the very complex programs supporting the DoD mission. Additionally, all this has now taken on new, beneficial requirements around increased transparency between contractors and the US Government.

To help meet such EVM requirements, which are set forth by the Defense Contracts Management Agency, we developed an application with one of our partners, QuantumPM, that we’re making available free of charge on our open source hosting site. The application guides users through the export of Microsoft Project 2007 data and translates the earned value output into the DCMA’s UN/CEFACT XML standard.

By reducing the time and resources required to gather, analyze and format the data,

the application makes it easier to spot cost overruns and potential problems much earlier in the process, saving taxpayer money.