A previous post about the supposed difficulties in calculating Earned Value brought a comment that maybe the calculations weren't difficult but rather extensive. Extensive seems a bit of a stretch.
The first question though, the inverted question actually is:
How are you going to measure "progress to plan?
What units of measure would be used - if we don't used Earned Value - to show we're making progress to plan?
Agile measures progress in some type of "story points." A value assigned to a work effort. When that work is complete, they take credit for it by accumulating the "story points," and compare that with the planned "story points" at that time in the project.
I'm not familiar with any other measurement system, so only agile's "points" and EV are in my tool box
The Math for Earned Value
Here's the math needed to manage a project with EV. These formulas have math.
So let's invert the Question
If we don't use EV or Agile's points system what are we going to use?
If don't step up to Earned Value or agile, what are we going to use to measure progress? We need to measure
- What was our plan?
- What is our progress, physical progress?
- At the rate we're going, how much will it cost? How long will to take to complete?
- With this information, what is the "pace" we need to achieve to finish on time?