Earned Value Managment - Scope Change and Project Re-Baseline

Question

Hello all

I have been working on detailed schedule update processes around Earned Value Management and have come across what seems to be an anomaly in Microsoft Project.  When scope changes within a project the baseline for the project should be updated to reflect the new/removed scope.  We explored using the “Set Baseline Selected tasks” with the “Roll-up to All Summary Tasks” but have observed that the time-phased baseline on summary and project summary tasks has been re-distributed after updating the baseline.  My questions are:

1. Has anyone else seen this behavior?
2. If so, could you please share any solutions or recommendations?

I originally posted this anomaly with more detailed post but did not receive any replies.

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/projectprofessional2010general/thread/42dfc94b-f664-49b7-90f4-e82059e48895

Answer 1

Check to see if you have any progress which is ahead of the data date......  (Out of sequence progress)   When you have actual start or finish dates which are ahead of schedule (ahead of the current date) it causes some bizarre things to happen to the Earned Value calculations......

Frankly, I hate using MSP for Earned Value.  I prefer to dump the information into Excel and at least you can see what is happening to it, plus being able to do more in terms of a graphical display and analysis.

BR,

Dr. PDG, Boston, MA, USA

http://www.build-project-management-competency.com 

Answer 2

Dr. PDG

Thank you for your reply.  This behavior does seem to occur when a task is ahead of schedule with respect to the baseline (i.e. Planned or Actuals start and/or finish date is before the Baseline Start and/or Finish date) in both MSP 2007 and MSP 2010.  In recent testing with MSP 2010, I observed that tasks that are behind shedule will also show some redistribution.  The net result of this redistribution is an understatement of BCWS which prevails through to the end of the project.

Regards