There are several worthy Earned Value Management books on the market. Project Management Using Earned Value gets my vote. Mainly because it covers the current approaches to integrating EV with risk management and cost management.
If you want a book that is practical and goes beyond the simple minded approaches to EV (like many of my simple minded charts do ;>)) this is the book. It's ridiculously expensive, so it's a book that needs to be put to work to earn its keep. But for those entering the EV world skip all the introduction texts and buy this one.
It's surprising how fast EV and IMP/IMS is spreading in the IT domain. NASA has just released (March 9, 2005) their new Program Management Handbook, Version 1.0 from Exploration Systems Mission Directorate (ESMD). It should be on the web soon. This is an "over the top" program managers guide, but has many useful core concepts for anyone calling themself a "project manager."
BTW, ESMD is led by Craig Steidle (Adm USN Ret) - the former Joint Strike Fighter Program Manager. He's bringing EV and IMP/IMS to ESMD. Although much of this approach is for large and complex projects, the core concepts are applicable across the board even to agile projects:
- What does "done" look like?
- How would I know it when I see it?
- What are the units of measure of "done?"
- Can we trace funding to value to project performance?
- What are the risk points in the project that need attention now? And in what ways to minimize cost and schedule?
- Who's doing what, for what reason, and how do we know they are adding value to the customers needs?
Questions and answers like this are applicable for Billion $ manned space programs and agile software development projects. The answers are espically interesting to those funding these efforts.
