Anyone who accepts a role as a scheduler, project engineer, project manager, program manager or higher should have completed training in best practice methods for both scheduling and EVMS, otherwise they go into battle unarmed. They are unarmed and unprepared to manage their project’s cost, schedule, and performance goals.

By Roger Risinger

Scheduling best practice training will give them the methods and tools necessary to create and maintain accurate, realistic and executable schedules so that the project timeline goals are met. An example I can offer is a company I worked for prior to coming to SMA. The company had spent a lot of time and money creating a whole suite of scheduling training classes and tools but only offered them to the scheduling community, but only rarely to the project management community and higher.

Not offering this type of training to a project manager (PM) has several unintended consequences. First, the PM is very likely to create a schedule where they can’t meet the project’s stated delivery goals—the key downside here is the damage to the PM’s and the organization’s reputations. Second, the PM will likely not know how to setup and maintain a schedule baseline to keep the Earned Value Management System (EVMS) parameters and metrics up to date and accurate, again damaging reputations and driving away repeat business.

Earned Value training forces a PM to learn the proper methods to manage other factors such as resources, resource availability, percentage of work complete, cost, Actual Cost of Work Performed (ACWP), Budgeted cost of work performed (BCWP), Budgeted Cost of Work Scheduled (BCWS), slack, constraints, etc., to meet the project’s cost or budget goals. Again, reputations and future business are at risk if the project cost goals are not met.

Lastly, each project also has performance goals for the products being created, or the services being offered that can be put at risk if the PM and staff do not know how to accurately translate the Project Statement of Work and Technical Specifications requirements into accurately connected, properly resource loaded, and accurately maintained integrated master schedule and integrated master plan (IMS/IMP).

From the perspective of a client, SMA can bring a lot to the table with respect to all aspects of project management. There can be two types of benefits provided by SMA to a client; first, industry experts can ensure the near-term goals are met, for example, proposal submission; then second, these industry experts can provide scheduling and EVMS training to the client’s staff if requested, thereby also providing a valuable long-term benefit.

If you’re building a team and you have positions you can’t fill, you need to use SMA Talent on Demand (TOD®)! With TOD®, you can find experienced talent, such as Roger, matched to your exact needs.

If your team needs training in Project Scheduling or Earned Value Management Systems, contact us: