Unfortunately I never received my book so I can not give any opinion.

Regards

This is a book that talks a lot about Earned Value in terms of history and usefulness; how it advanced since 1967 C/SCSC to today's EVM standard.
To my amazement, unfortunately, this book does NOT show you how to calculate EARNED VALUE. It keeps talking about how to use it to assess progress and predict future progress but it does not show how to get it.
This is a MAJOR flaw in my opinion.

I finished reading the book and I am disappointed. It needs more examples. There are better books in the market on this.

I wish I had had this book much earlier in my project management career! The authors of this book are able to bring the esoteric aspects of Earned Value to the masses. Reading this text is easy - not like a reading text book - and the authors provide (somewhat) "real life" case studies to back up their examples.

One author claims to be an expert in Earned Value, and I believe it after reading his explanations - he is able to cut to the essence of the idea without leaving the important details behind. This book is worth the money, especially if you've read other text about Earned Value - you'll appreciate the simplicity of this one.

Fleming and Koppelman have done a decent job of bringing the complex subject of Earned Value Management into perspective. Starting with an interesting history of the subject from its beginnings in 1965, they have broken the subject down into its components and given a clear explanation of the fundamentals. If you're planning on working in the EVMS field any time soon, I would recommend this as a good starting point to familiarize yourself with the subject.

Fleming and Koppelman have done a decent job of bringing the complex subject of Earned Value Management into perspective. Starting with an interesting history of the subject from its beginnings in 1965, they have broken the subject down into its components and given a clear explanation of the fundamentals. If you're planning on working in the EVMS field any time soon, I would recommend this as a good starting point to familiarize yourself with the subject.

So far I have found two books dedicated to the topic of earned value: this book by Fleming and Koppelman and another book entitled `Using Earned Value' by Alan Webb. Note that I am not listing the earned value `Cliff notes' entitled `Project Management: The Commonsense Approach" by the Lamberts, which will not add to your understanding of earned value management or analysis, and serves, at best, as a memory jogger on the basic concepts.

"Earned Value Project Management, Second Edition" by Fleming and Koppelman provides a good treatment of the history of earned value and of the calculation methods of its core measurements. However the book falls short in terms of methods of analysis and interpretation of these measurements, which is really where project managers need guidance and expertise. Indeed calculations are automated by the scheduling packages (e.g. Microsoft Project, Primavera, etc.), in other words getting the numbers is never the problem (although some packages have had their share of problems doing this), or let's just say it's the easy part. Obviously one needs to understand how the numbers are calculated and what they mean but this part of earned value does not require a whole book about it. The true challenge in earned value management is the analysis part. Once you have the numbers, you need to understand what they mean to your project, how they trend, how they relate/influence one another and most importantly how you should use them in gauging the health of your project. This information then needs to be translated in either corrective actions (which are hopefully proportional to the problem at hand) or inaction (provided that you have made the conscious decision, based on the data, to keep things as they are). I believe that this is where this book falls short. It gives the reader an understanding of the concepts but lacks in the guidance that is required for a true, practical, and day-to-day application of earned value on projects. In another words, it's a good start but not quite enough.

The reader that is familiar with Project Management Institute books will find it extremely useful and connected to real life. Presents Earned Value definition and how is possible to organize your projects based on Earned Value principles. If you're interested to have results oriented projects, or if you're interested in project performance, or project monitoring, this book is really helpful. I highly reccomend you to read and use it. If you like "not so academic" books, you might find it a little bit too condensed, and probably you'll need to search for something else. Microsoft Projects offers very good definitions of Earned Value, Cost Performance Index and Schedule Performance Index that you might learn as first steps.

Earned Value Project Management provides project managers with "just enough" to understand and begin using earned value analysis on projects. Koppelman and Fleming have distilled a complex and often intimidating subject and have made it immediately applicable to projects in any industry. I use this book to explain EVM concepts to my students and find it an invaluable tool in my own work as a project manager.

IF YOU ENJOY READING DOCTORAL DISSERTATIONS THEN BUY THIS BOOK.

Microsoft Project 2002 calculates Earned Value and explains the concepts in PLAIN ENGLISH in the help menu.

This is a typical PMI publication:
POORLY WRITTEN, OVERLY COMPLICATED and BORING.

As explained in Chapter 12, applying Earned Value concepts on projects in a publicly traded company may avoid legal problems surrounding accurate reporting of the financial situation of a company. This is because most projects if not completed could result in inaccurate financial reporting for a publicly traded company (if some form of performance measurement wasn't used while the project was in progress). It is interesting that this book was written before the accounting scandals of 2001-2002 and one of the few books that addresses this aspect. I don't know how much of the accounting scandals involved projects but I wouldn't be surprised if the SEC starts imposing stricter rules on the financial reporting surrounding projects in the future.

This book is an excellent treatise on how to measure project performance from both a cost and schedule perspective. This is what Earned Valued Analysis is all about. The book never gets too complicated and is easy to follow the whole way (200 pages). A word of caution - this may be too much material to digest if you are trying to prepare for the PMP. Rita Mulcahy's PMP Exam Prep has enough information on Earned Value Analysis that will easily help you get through that section on the PMP exam. But as soon as you obtain your PMP certification, I would highly recommend making the mastery of the material in this book your next goal. The real payoff in applying the project management principles comes when you are able to measure the project performance on top of controlling project performance and presenting the results to your project sponsors.

By the way, the concepts involved in Earned Value Analysis are extremely simple. It is amazing that so much control over your project can be attained by paying attention to the simple concepts of Earned Value, Planned Value, Actual Cost, and the related concepts of CPI and SPI. After setting up the project baseline to calculate these variables on a frequent basis, you are ready to control and predict the future of the project.

The first four chapters of the book go into the overall concepts and the history of Earned Value. Chapters 5-10 address how to set up your project for fully utilizing the power of the Earned Value concepts - all the way from setting up the scope of the project to forecasting. Chapter 11 discusses how the concepts apply to the private sector and Chapter 12 deals with the legal implications.

The authors are related to Primavera Systems (the leading provider of Project Management Software for the Engineering & Construction industries) either as CEO or consultant to Primavera. PMI used to recommend this as required reading to prepare for the PMP exam but I am not sure if they still do. In either case, I don't believe it is required reading. I tried to read it before the PMP exam and I couldn't digest the material because there was too much on my mind already. But now that I have passed the PMP exam, I have thoroughly enjoyed learning the concepts and applying them to my current projects.

I hope everyone masters this subject and more projects in the world would end up successful. Good luck!

Earned Value is a great Project Management tool when the situation is right.

In my mind, the "right" situation is where you work for a large company where the deliverables are WELL defined in terms of monetary value and the expected duration of the work. In these cases EV can be really useful for keeping track of your work and budget status as well as forecasting.

This book does a great job of explaining what EV is and how to use it effectively. One point that I felt it does not cover well is defining how you get your "EV." This is actually a very straightforward process that I felt the author should have spent at least a few paragraphs on.

Overall...If I was building a plane...say with a budget of $10 million and had 2.5 years to build it in; then I would definitely use EV and this book as a reference guide.

Todd Shyres, PMP, CISSP

Why would anyone buy this edition - it's outdated. There is a newer edition with a lot more current material and it has over 50 pages more text. See isbn 1880410273 for the second edition of this title. That newer edition deserves all the compliments mentioned above and below for this edition.

Joel Koppelman and Quentin Fleming have provided project managers with a practical and readable review of the history, purpose and use of an invaluable tool - earned value.

There is nothing difficult about the concept. Its focus is the accurate measurement of physical performance against a detailed plan to accurately predict finished costs and schedule. It requires a project's scope be defined and integrated with all of the available resources. If used properly, the calculation provides an early indicator of project slippage or the scope of project cost overruns.

The book would rate, in my mind, a five-star rating if the authors included practical examples or a few case studies.

I've been a project manager for about 20 years, but have just gone back to get my Master's in PM. This book was used as a textbook in one of my classes. It provides the clearest, most concise directions for using earned value I have seen. I highly recommend it for all PMs, and anyone trying to get their management to buy into the concept of earned value.