Chapter 1 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF EVM

Earned value management (EVM) as we know it today might not exist without the federal government’s instigation and support. In the 1960s, the U.S. government commissioned a project reporting system composed of 35 requirements called the cost/schedule control systems criteria (C/SCSC). The objective of that system was to provide a common basis for reporting and decision-making by both the project initiator and the project contractor. That is, the project owner (the federal government) needed information that established a valid relationship among cost, schedule, and technical requirements in a summarized and meaningful format from the people actually performing project work so timely decisions could be made.

After the U.S. government spearheaded the development of objective project reporting, industry groups joined the effort and C/SCSC was modified into today’s 32 EVM criteria. The first industry-approved EVM standard, ANSI/EIA 748-A, was published by the Government Electronics and Information Technology Association (GEIA) in 1998 and adopted by the federal government in 1999. In 2007, ANSI/EIA-748-B (the EVM standard) was approved. Through association mergers, GEIA later became a part of TechAmerica. An ANSI-accredited national standards developer, TechAmerica released ANSI/EIA-748-C in March 2013. The ANSI/EIA-748 version in force at the time contracts are signed, as elaborated and interpreted by various government documents, is the version that governs contractor EVM systems.