Earned Value (EV) is a means of putting a monetary value on project status to enable companies to measure project health. To understand Percent Complete, you first need to view it as a fraction. A fraction is obtained by dividing one number by another larger number. For example, work hours spent divided by total work hours estimated, or wages paid divided by total budget. In PM Compass, there are two types of percent complete:
Percent Complete — Duration percent complete
Physical % Complete — Earned value percent complete
Percent Complete deals with time and is measured by activity duration. For example, a 10-day activity is 40% complete at the close of business on the fourth work day. The task is late if the value for Percent Complete is less than the expected value as of the status date.
Physical % Complete deals with physical progress and can be used as an alternative for calculating budgeted cost of work performed (BCWP). This field is also known as Earned Value % Complete.
Use Physical % Complete when the calculated percent complete would not be an accurate measure of real work performed or measured. Unlike the Percent Complete field, the Physical % Complete field is independent of the total duration or actual duration values used by the Percent Complete field to calculate BCWP. Physical % complete is preferred over % Complete in projects where speed of doing the work in activities does not remain the same during the activity duration.
The Physical % Complete fields in Open Plan at the resource level and at the activity level are interdependent and changing one value affects the other. In other words, when you enter a value in one field, Open Plan automatically calculates and enters the value in the other field in order to keep the two fields synchronized.
BCWP is a measure used in cost control that allows you to quantify the overall progress of the project in monetary terms. BCWP is calculated by multiplying the physical % complete by the planned cost. Another term for BCWP is “earned value.” Open Plan calculates earned value by multiplying the physical % complete by the budget cost.
You decide to build a wall that is five rows high. You estimate that the task will take 150 minutes to complete. You understand that each row will probably take you a little longer as you get tired. The first row takes you 20 minutes to complete. The second takes 25 minutes to complete. The third takes 30 minutes to complete. You estimate that the fourth and fifth rows will take you 40 and 45 minutes respectively. After completing row three, you report your Percent Complete and Physical % Complete as follows:
Physical % Complete (Earned value) = 60% because you have completed 60% of the rows, or 3 out of 5
Percent Complete (Duration) = 50% because you have worked 75 minutes out of the total 150 planned minutes
Your task is to install an air conditioning unit in 10 days. You complete the installation of all the pipes by the end of the first day. You spend the next nine days making adjustments and testing the new unit. At the end of the first day, you report your Percent Complete as follows:
Physical % Complete (Earned value) = 80% because you used all of the hardware and completed 80% of the work on the first day
Percent Complete (Duration) = 10% because you have only worked one of the possible ten days