BCWP Question

[Steve Schacher]

A question came up from one of my co-workers. Is it true that the BCWP
only calculates up to the status date?

I was playing around with baselines, status dates, and percent
complete, and could never get the BCWP to be greater than the BCWS
until I either started a task earlier than baseline or completed the
task ahead of baseline. Incomplete tasks that are ahead of schedule
don't seem to work the way I expected, i.e., BCWP always equals BCWS,
and SPI is always 1.

How do you use BCWS, BCWP, & SPI on tasks that are ahead of schedule
but not complete yet?

Steve Schacher

 

[Margy]

I have a follow on question to Steve's question. (Sorry,
but I just found this chat room so I am going nuts asking
all my nattering questions)

Here is the situation:
The task took 3 times as long to complete as estimated.
There is a Finish-to-Start dependency with its successor.
(This causes a late start for the successor, etc..)
The timecard was sent in, and this task as well as the
other active tasks in the project, were updated prior to
the Status Date.
The Earned Value in the subject (1st) task is divided by
the Planned Value. They are the same and the SPI is 1.
This makes me nuts! What I would want to see is that the
SPI is less than one because this task has made the
project late.
Does the lateness of the project only show in the Project
Summary Task? Is that how I am to conclude that the
project is late?

 

[Steve Schacher]

Thanks for the reply.

How then do you identify tasks that are not yet complete but ahead of
schedule? According to your answer, you have to complete the task
prior to the status date for the SPI to be > 1. I see that starting a
task prior to the baseline start will give an SPI > 1, but if a task
starts on time but it's progress is ahead of schedule, which measures
show this?