I come across lots of commercial or semi-commercial project management sites. Here's one that offers some useful articles. The one that struck me was Earned Value and SOX. There is a discussion that erupts spontaneously on almost any forum - "never use Earned Value, it doesn't work, it's 'old school,' I have a much better way."
These words usually come from a person with a well formed opinion about lots of things but who hasn't actually ever worked in a true Earned Value environment. Some criticism is warranted for EV. It's somewhat obtuse in theory. Reading books about EV or looking through slide shows only gets you so far. Practicing EV is required. And since there are actually few places to practice EV outside of EV shops - there are many opinions based on "looking in from the outside."
Here in aerospace we "live and breath" EV. Nothing gets done without asking "what's the impact on BCWP?" But this is a unique environment. Enter Sarbanes Oxley and full disclosure of both the cost and performance of projects under the management of the CIO.
The Chief Project Officer web site has an article that introduces EV to the SOX environment. No matter what your personal opinion of EV, some form of "measurement of value" in needed in public firms for project portfolios.
I have presented on this topic before, approaching it from Balanced Scorecard, EV Based Contracting and reading and re-reading the wealth of information on Earned Value.
Whether mandatory or enlightened Earned Value is moving from the DoD to the mainstream.
