PM Excellence Academy
Module 9 of 12 · Managing Execution 2
Percent complete, effort burned, and schedule each tell a partial truth. Read alone, any one misleads. Read together, they show exactly where the project stands, in time to act.
Illustrated module guide · the complete walkthrough · companion to the Quick ReferenceModule 8’s business rhythm said to check financial signals every week. Name the signals you would look at, and why “we are 60% done” is not enough on its own.
The trap
A project manager asks “how is the project?” and usually receives one number. “We are about 70% done.” A figure like that sounds like an answer, and it carries only one dimension of the work. Percent complete with no cost says nothing about margin. Fee burned with no progress says nothing about value delivered. Schedule with no effort says nothing about how hard the team is pulling to hold the date. Each number, alone, tells the most flattering story it can.
Percent complete, burn rate, and schedule only tell the truth when they are read together. One number alone will lie.
The PM’s job in monitoring goes beyond collecting metrics. The job is to triangulate, to hold the numbers against each other until the real story appears.
The signals
Three signals are blind on their own and honest in combination.
How much of the work is actually done, value earned rather than effort spent.
How much of the budget has been consumed to reach this point.
Where the work sits against the dates the plan committed to.
?Pause & predict.
A task is reported “on schedule” and “40% of fee burned.” You then learn it is only 25% complete. What is the real story, and is “on schedule” good news here?
The comparison
A number on its own is data. A number against the plan is information. Variance, the gap between what was planned and what actually happened, is where the project reports the truth. The discipline is simple and relentless: for progress, cost, and schedule, a project manager always asks “versus what we planned?” A 144k effort is neither good nor bad until the plan shows it was supposed to be 120k.
The instrument
Earned Value is the disciplined way to read those three signals at once. It rests on three measured quantities:
The budgeted cost of the work the team planned to have done by now.
The budgeted cost of the work the team has actually completed (% complete × budget).
What the completed work has actually cost so far.
From those three, two variances tell the whole story:
Positive = ahead of plan on value delivered. Negative = behind.
Positive = work cost less than budgeted. Negative = over budget for the work done.
That is the entire idea: the two variances ask whether the team is delivering the value it planned (schedule), and whether that value is costing what the plan said it would (cost). The Quick Reference turns this into a calculator a project manager can run on a live task.
The example
Consider the Oakhaven Public Safety Campus from the finance modules. At Design Development the dashboard reads as follows, and the three signals together allow an honest reading:
| Design Development | Planned (earned) | Actual (effort) | Variance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Value of work done | $120k | $144k spent | −$24k cost |
| Schedule | On plan | 14 days late | −14 days |
| Billing | · | $41k unbilled | at risk |
Any single row could be explained away. Together they are unambiguous: the phase earned $120k of value but consumed $144k of effort, is two weeks late, and is carrying $41k it has not billed. That is a phase losing $24k of margin in plain sight, exactly the kind of signal the weekly rhythm exists to catch early.
The close
Reading the numbers is half the job. The other half is what the Accountable Owner does next: when the team is absorbing client-caused rework on nights and weekends, the owner does not let the hours quietly vanish into the budget. They surface the cause and put the cost in front of the client. The team’s hours are not free to give away. The Coordinator records the overrun. The People Pleaser absorbs it. The Owner converts it into a decision.
Pick one live task. Pull its percent complete, fee burned, and schedule and read them together, then run the earned-value numbers in the Quick Reference. If value earned trails cost spent, name the action this week: a scope conversation, a staffing change, or a billing catch-up.
?Challenge · from memory.
From memory: name the three signals you read together, and the two earned-value variances and what each one tells you.
The one idea
Percent complete, burn rate, and schedule only tell the truth when they are read together. One number alone will lie.