Cumulative Earned Value

This chart displays your planned and actual progress at a glance.

The horizontal axis depicts the passage of time, and the vertical axis displays percent complete. The lines on the chart convey various measures of progress:

Interpretation

The simplest and most useful way to use this chart, is to compare the Actual line to the Plan. If the Actual line is above the plan line, you are ahead of schedule. If it is below the plan line, you are behind schedule.

When you are behind schedule, it could be due to the fact that you are unable to spend as many direct hours as you planned. If so, the Cumulative Direct Time chart will make this problem clear. Otherwise, you could be behind because tasks are taking longer than expected. The Earned Value vs. Cost chart will highlight that problem.

Next, the Replan and Forecast lines can be helpful tools for strategic planning. But be wary about using the Forecast line during the first few weeks of your schedule. When limited actual data is available, the forecast date may be unstable, changing dramatically each time a task is marked complete. During those initial weeks, it is better to watch the Replan line. Once you have collected a few weeks' worth of data, the Forecast line will be much more useful. If the forecast line is consistently predicting a date that will not allow you to meet your commitments, you may need to escalate the issue.

On a team rollup, lines will be drawn for the "Forecast" and the "Optimized Forecast." The optimized line shows the date work might complete if the workload is rebalanced perfectly. In contrast, the Forecast line will be displaying the date when the last person is projected to finish, assuming that no tasks are reassigned. When the Optimized line and the Forecast line are far apart, this is an indication that the team workload is unbalanced, and tasks may need to be reassigned.

A forecast line cannot be drawn until you have logged some time against the schedule and marked at least one task complete. When you are looking at a team rollup, the forecast is computed by finding the date when the last team member will finish. If the schedule for any team member does not have a forecast, then no forecast can be computed for the team either. So if your team rollup doesn't have a forecast line, check to see whether some of your team members are still 0% complete. The easiest way to do this is to open the Task & Schedule window for the team schedule.

Normally, the Plan line will extend to reach 100%. However, if you have set an "end date" for your schedule, and there is not enough time in your plan to finish all of the work, the Plan line will not reach 100%. In this case, the dashboard's forecast calculation may also decide that the work will never complete, and no forecast line will be drawn on the chart. In these cases, you may need to escalate the issue.

When a Baseline is present, the Baseline line usually will not end at the 100% mark. For example, if the planned cost of your project has grown since the baseline was saved, the planned line will reach higher than the baseline. Thus, you can compare the Baseline to the Plan to visualize Baseline Growth.