Earned Value Management (EVM) Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Earned Value Management (EVM) - Term Paper Example The business organisations engaged in competition strives to take an upper hand position in the market by achieving a sustainable competitive advantage. In this regard, they aim to utilize effective management tools and techniques to strengthen their position in terms of finance, market share, operational efficiency etc (Huggins and Izushi, 2011, p.227). To achieve a sustainable growth and development, managements must strive to manage their assigned projects in a systematic way for optimum outcomes. Efficient and effective Project management is a challenging task which includes multiple activities, and management generally uses certain specific techniques, tools and systems for handling a project. Earned Value Management (EVM), an approach for project management is the most popular and widely used technique for project management (Dinsmore and Cabanis-Brewin, 2010, p.107). This report will attempt to present importance and use of EVM for analysing and assessing planning, scheduling, costing, budgeting, evaluating and performance monitoring of a project. 2. Management of a Project An organisation including profit making or non-profit making performs a number of tasks. Each group of tasks have a certain specific goal and this group of tasks can be termed as ‘project’. Organisations get themselves engaged in the multiple projects to achieve the common and overall goals and objectives. Therefore, successful completion of project is very vital for the organisational success and project management has evolved as key process in business related activities. With increasing pressure of the workloads, project management is gaining recognition in all types of organisation including SMEs and multinational enterprises. In simple terms, project management can be defined as â€Å"the task of managing work† (Cooke and Tate, 2005, p.1). In case of business management, a project can involves any types of tasks e.g. product development; implementing new machi nes or system in operation for increasing efficiency; or marketing promotions and advertisement. Generally, the project management can be completed through a set five sequential processes. These five processes are initiation, planning, execution, controlling and closure (Choudhuri, n.d. p.3). However, in each process there are various tasks that strive to support each of the aspects and criterions in the course of project management. Cost management, risk and quality management, budgeting, operational management, scheduling etc are the example of these tasks. The above sated tasks can also be termed as project management knowledge that includes nine areas and each of them are crucial of the effective project management. These nine areas also include certain tasks and these areas are explained in the following chart. Figure 1: Project Management Knowledge Areas (Source: Choudhuri, n.d. p.4) 3. Background of Earned Value Management (EVM) In the previous section, the tasks involved in a project management have been discussed, and each of these tasks is critical having direct influence on the profitability and organisational growth. If the project management team is able to complete these tasks efficiently, they are able to meet the goal of a project. In the course of these tasks, maintenance of efficient, accuracy, and reliability are key factors for the success.