Earned Value Management Calculator
Run a full earned value analysis from budget, actual cost and percent complete: cost and schedule variance, performance indices, estimate at completion and the efficiency needed to recover.
Last reviewed by the Radiatus Cloud team
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The question every project status meeting avoids
"We are seventy percent done and we have spent eighty percent of the budget" is a statement people make without following it to its conclusion. Earned value management follows it. If seventy percent of the value has been delivered for eighty percent of the money, the cost performance index is 0.875, and if that efficiency holds the project will finish at roughly fourteen percent over budget. That projection is available in month three, which is when it is useful, rather than at the end when it is a post mortem.
Three numbers generate everything else
Planned value is what should have been earned by now according to the baseline. Earned value is the budgeted cost of what has actually been completed. Actual cost is what has been spent. Cost variance is earned value minus actual cost, schedule variance is earned value minus planned value, and the two indices are the same comparisons expressed as ratios. Everything in EVM, including the forecasts, derives from those three inputs, which is why it works on any project that can state a budget and a percent complete.
The forecast is the point
Estimate at completion projects the final cost. The standard formula assumes current cost efficiency continues, which is the assumption that historical project data most supports: past performance predicts future performance far better than the optimistic recovery plans presented in status meetings. The to complete performance index shows the efficiency the remaining work would need to hit the original budget, and when that number exceeds about 1.1 it is generally not achievable, which is a useful and uncomfortable thing to know early.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is earned value exactly?
The budgeted cost of the work actually completed. If a task budgeted at 10,000 is half done, it has earned 5,000 of value regardless of what has been spent on it. That is what makes it comparable to both the plan and the actual cost.
What do the indices mean?
A cost performance index of 1.0 means you are getting a unit of value per unit of spend. Below 1.0 is over budget, above is under. The schedule performance index does the same for progress against the baseline. Both are ratios, so they are comparable across projects of different sizes.
Which estimate at completion formula should I use?
The cost performance index based formula is the default and the best supported by data, since it assumes current efficiency continues. Use the variant that also divides by the schedule index when schedule pressure is driving the overspend, and the simple additive formula only when the overrun was a genuine one off.
What does the to complete performance index tell me?
The cost efficiency the remaining work must achieve to finish on the original budget. Research on project outcomes suggests that above about 1.1 it is very rarely achieved, so a high figure is a signal to rebaseline rather than to promise recovery.
Does the schedule index tell me if I will be late?
Only indirectly, and it becomes unreliable near the end because earned value converges on the total budget whatever the delay. Use it early, and use the actual critical path for schedule forecasting late in a project.
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How to Use
Enter budget at completion, actual cost, planned value and percent complete to get the full EVM set.
Disclaimer: This tool is provided "as is" without warranty of any kind. Results are for educational and utility purposes.
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