Chapter 20: Earned Value Management: Validation, Surveillance, and Over Target Baselines

This EVM chapter discusses three remaining important topics: validation of the EVM system, system surveillance, and over target baselines. Having a validated EVM system is the first step to ensuring that the EVM system generates reliable data. The validation process consists of determining how well an EVM system complies with the EIA-748 standards. After a program has started collecting data using a validated EVM system, the program needs to conduct regular surveillance. The purpose of regular surveillance is to maintain the quality of the data, as well as to ensure the system continues to meet the EIA-748 standards. The last topic in this chapter is over target baselines and schedules. At times, cost and schedule baselines may become so unrealistic that they prevent management from discovering problems that can be mitigated. In these cases, changes are made to the cost and schedule baselines to add budget to future work and eliminate historical variances.