No matter how often it is said, Business Value and Earned Value are not the same value. Earned Value's value is the Budgeted Cost for Work Performed (BCWP). The value is earned by completing the measured percentage - preferrably 100% - of the value of the work budgeted - the Budget Cost of Work Scheduled (BCWS).
BCWP = BCWS x Percent Complete (or some other form of tangible evidence of progress)
The value of business value of a strategic and operational assignment of value to the business. When there two terms are confused, mixed, or just complained about, both sides of the equation loose.
Here's how to connect them from the top donw, using Vision, Mission, Strategic Objectives, Performance Goals, Critical Success Factors, and Key Performance Indicators. It's the KPI's where the EV metrics live. The other metrics are business centric and have units of measures that are business focused. These are called Measures of Effectiveness in the Systems Engineering world. The KPI's have Measures of Performance along with the EV metrics.
Use this approach and ignore the voices that claim EV value is not Business value and the comments that EV of no interest to IT projects. It turns out EV is directly connected to methods like Scrum, where measures of physical percent complete are embedded in the process. These voices are unlikely speaking from hands on experience connecting business value with Earned Value on actual projects.
This approach of connecting busines value with Earned Value works, it is currentlyworking, and will work once you get past the rhetoric.
