Can the ANSI/EIA-748 EVMS requirements be satisfied with a commercial software product?
There are a number of commercial software products that can help companies achieve their Earned Value Management goals but the implementation a software product alone will not satisfy the ANSI/EIA 748 EVMS requirements. Similar to an ERP implementation, an EVMS implementation is more about business transformation than technology implementation. The technology arm of the EVMS is an enabling tool (such as Cobra or MPM), but the business must transform to successfully satisfy the criteria and effectively and efficiently use the EVMS to predict and improve project performance.
Earned Value Management (EVM) is the methodology for determining cost and schedule performance of a project by comparing planned work with accomplished work in terms of the dollar value assigned to the work. While it has been used by the Department of Defense (DoD) to standardize contractor requirements for reporting cost and schedule performance on major contracts since 1967, it has just recently become a widely accepted methodology for measuring project performance in the commercial industry.
EVM monitors project performance and enhance control by answering the following questions: