Maintaining Control During Project Execution 175Budgeted Cost of Work Scheduled (BCWS) is a measure of
what you expect to accomplish. Specifically, it uses the original
cost estimates for activities to chart the cost (or value) of the
work that you plan to get done over time. It’s equivalent to the
conventional concept of the “planned budget.” In Figure 9-5,
the “Estimated Expenditure” solid line is the Budgeted Cost of
Work Scheduled.
Budgeted Cost of Work Performed (BCWP) is a measure of
the value of what you’ve actually accomplished. It charts the
cost (or value) of the work you’ve gotten done at any point in
time. Again, the original activity-based cost estimates are used
to perform these calculations. This is what “earned value”
actually is.
Actual Cost of Work Performed (ACWP) refers to what you
paid for what you’ve accomplished. This would be your actual
cost expenditure at any point in time. In Figure 9-5, ACWP is
represented by the “Actual Expenditure” dotted line.
And so, conceptually, your schedule position is a compari-
son of BCWP and BCWS. In other words (using the terminology
above), it compares what you expected to accomplishand
what you’ve actually accomplished, in terms of originally esti-
mated dollar amounts.
Evaluating your scheduleposition in this manner is some-
what superfluous, as you can do the same thing by using the
schedule analysis techniques described earlier in this chapter.
However, using this method to evaluate your costposition
can be quite informative, as it considers accomplishment. Your
cost position can be evaluated by comparing BCWP and ACWP,
in other words, what you thought you’d have to payand what
you’ve actually paid—for a given amount of accomplishment.
Even if you don’t use rigorous earned value techniques, one
of the most valuable by-products of earned value is formally eval-
uating progress through the use of physical progressingmethods.
You do this by breaking down an activity into smaller parts
and then making an assessment of how much progress is being
made on an incremental basis. Figure 9-7 illustrates three
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