Schedule Variance

I have been thinking too much about schedule variance lately.  I would like to say that it has all been good thoughts, but alas it hasn't.  I am assisting a co-worker on creating some schedule variance reports for his project and it doesn't look good.

Schedule variance is an important metric if you believe that projects should be delivered on time. Since time is the most valuable resource, the one that you can't get back or buy, project executors must consider time when figuring the earned value of the project.

Very few project managers work in an environment where mandays burned equal mandays earned. Most of us have to enforce schedule discipline on our project teams.

Anyways, schedule variance in important in figuring out the earned value of the project.  To be able to see if a project can get back on track and to figure out what the root cause of the variance is so it can be fixed.  Many a good project manager has been laid to waste by not managing this aspect of the project, which will ultimately cause budget overruns and cause the project to fail.

This is one reason that the project schedule must be realistic and be complete with resources assigned.  When a schedule is realistic or without resources assigned, it is easy to see the project slip because activities take longer or resources aren't available.

So this is a metric that the project manager must pay attention to and remedy before the situation gets out of hand.