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“It was two years of effort and two years of struggle,” said Steve Wake, describing the work to bring the Earned Value Management certification to fruition yesterday. Wake, the chief examiner for the EVM qualification, was speaking at Project Challenge.
“The best thing that a project manager can do for us is this – it’s status,” he said. “It’s where we are and what we’ve done. To ask a project manager to do more than that is quite a lot.”
Earned Value does ask us to do more than that. Wake explained it as “a disciplined framework for managing work.” His definition is:
“A project control procedure based on a structured approach to planning, cost collection and performance management. It facilitates the integration of project scope, time and cost objectives and the establishment of a baseline plan for performance measurement.”
Got it?
If not, never fear. There is a new exam you can take to prove you understand the concepts of EVM. “It keeps you out of harms way,” Wake said of the new qualification. “You’ll understand the language and vernacular and when asked to do something you’ll have a grasp of the process.” If that sounds basic, it’s because it is. There is no Practitioner EVM qualification yet, but there is one in the works.
The Foundation exam, like the others from the APMG stable, is a multiple choice, entry level paper. It’s 40 questions, 30 of which are knowing/comprehending questions and 10 of which are applying/analysing questions. Questions are based on the EVM – APM Guidelines. Candidates have one hour to sit the closed book exam and the pass mark is 65% - or 75% if you want to be an assessor. Wake explained that when the pilot group took the exam all but one passed. This has given them confidence that they have set the difficulty levels appropriately.
There is a course that accompanies the exam, although it is not compulsory and you can enter yourself directly for the qualification itself. The course objectives are:
- Define EV concepts
- Select and deploy EV formulae
- Describe EV processes
- Explain different levels of system review
- And of course, take and pass the exam.
“We have a problem with Earned Value in the UK,” Wake said. “We all use it, those who say they do, but there’s no way to put a stamp on it.” He hopes that this qualification is the stamp, and that it will help avoid differing understandings and applications of EV. However, he was pragmatic about how much a qualification can really increase the abilities of project managers. “If you are confident that the thing is working correctly it frees you from chasing data,” he said. “Exams are good because they determine a standard and also because with this method they give you the chance to manage. With a good method you make good people very good. It won’t make bad people good, though.”
The EV qualification has been put together by APM’s Earned Value SIG, and they are now working on a paper to discussed EV and PRINCE2 alignment. “They are a good overlay to each other,” Wake explained. “There’s limited detail in PRINCE2 about how you measure progress.” This paper will be presented to the Best Practice User Group mid-November and made available after that – watch this space for more on how the two fit together.
Posted on: October 04, 2010 05:42 PM |
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