Earned Value Management, or EVM, is a powerful way of measuring project performance in a comprehensive, robust and quantitative way. It combines costs and schedule into a single value metric, which Gantts charts, schedules and check lists just can’t do. But how does it work? Read more to find out.
I have an unpopular opinion. I love meetings. There I said it. I get it, people hate meetings. But hear me out—when done right, they’re actually brilliant. Meetings are a space for dialogue. They encourage collaboration and cooperation. You can look somebody in the eye and get body language cues. You can interrogate ideas, dig deeper into data, and see things from different perspectives. Emails, instant messaging, and written reports just don’t offer the level of engagement that meetings provide. But before we move on, let’s define what kind of meetings I’m talking about. Workshops, seminars, creative charrettes, site walks, inspections, performance reviews, crisis meetings, one-on-ones etc.. are not “meeting” in the context of this article. I’m referring to your run-of-the-mill project meetings, where you might invite a bunch of people in a meeting room for an hour, or two hours, following some sort of agenda, and with a bit of luck, decisions are being made. There are reasons why people dislike these run-of-the-mill meetings. Most meetings are unfocused, go off-topic, or drag on way too long. You’ve got people playing on their phones, waiting for their turn to speak—or worse, waiting for the meeting to end—without any clear outcome.
Project Managers have to contend with a lot of data and information. Managers coordinate efforts and solve problems based on good information. The challenge is that there is a lot of it. In, say, a construction project, there are many moving parts. Each moving part generates information and data in many different ways serving different purposes. There are official reports, informal reports, memos, minutes of meetings, briefings, meeting transcripts, emails, instant messages, contracts, scope of work, technical specifications, engineering drawings, project plans, task lists, check lists, Kan Bans, progress dashboards, burn down charts, variation orders, client instructions, letters and notices, approval documents, Bill of Materials, procurement schedule, non-compliance notices, technical submittals, administrative submittals, cash flow, financial forecasts, budget, risk registers, change registers, progress log, compliance check list, equipment list,… and these the ones that reeled off the top of my head. And then there are water cooler conversation, one-on-ones, ad hoc emails, phone calls, online meetings etc… Buried deep, is a lot of good information, amongst a shed loads of noise, redundancy and erroneous data. It is critical that a project manager kicks off a project and onboard your team with an effective information and communication strategy that helps you minimise
A leading automotive manufacture was facing a series of data challenges, and were looking for a Digital Strategy and roadmap to improve their internal data process across vehicle programmes. We developed a 4 phase roadmap to achieve Level 3 Digital Twin maturity.
