Earned Value Cockpit
About this app
The Lumen project runs week by week: plan, actual cost and earned value grow as curves, SPI, CPI and the forecast respond at once. Progress rules reveal the gap behind "90 percent done".
With explain mode: an AI tutor walks you through the app, points out what matters in the scene and answers your questions.
The three earned value curves
Earned value management measures cost and schedule with one yardstick. Planned value PV is the budget of the work planned up to today. Actual cost AC is the money actually spent. Earned value EV is the budget of the work actually finished. From these follow the schedule performance index SPI = EV ÷ PV and the cost performance index CPI = EV ÷ AC. Values below 1 mean behind schedule or over cost. AC alone says nothing: a project that spends exactly as planned can still be behind.
What the app shows
The case project Lumen (fictional) has a budget of €1.2 m and a planned end in week 28. The plan curve is built from ten activities and their budgets. Four scenarios (plan, costly, late, both) let the today line run through project time. Gauges show SPI and CPI, and a forecast fan shows the development to the end. Three progress rules (0/100, 50/50 and milestones) decide how much value a started work package counts. The team report adds a claimed status such as 90 percent that then stops.
Things to try
Choose the scenario "Both bad" and move the today line to week 24. Actual cost stays close to the plan while earned value lies clearly below it. Switch between the rules and see how EV and SPI change. Let the team report stand at 90 percent and compare it with the measured EV. Switch on the intervention: three extra people cost money at once and first slow the team down during onboarding.
Frequently asked questions
- What do SPI and CPI mean?
- SPI (schedule performance index) is EV divided by PV and measures schedule status. CPI (cost performance index) is EV divided by AC and measures cost efficiency. A value of 1 means on plan, below 1 the project is behind or over cost, above 1 it is better than planned.
- Why is comparing planned and actual cost not enough?
- Actual cost only tells how much money was spent, not how much work is finished for it. Spending can match the plan while the project is behind. Only earned value links spending to the work result achieved.
- How is earned value determined?
- For each work package the progress achieved is valued with its budget. Common rules are 0/100 (value only on completion), 50/50 (half at start, rest on completion) and milestones with fixed shares. The app uses 25, 60 and 100 percent at one third, two thirds and completion.
- Does the app use real project data?
- No. It computes an invented teaching case with fixed figures and deterministic scenarios. The indicators follow the usual earned value method, while the scenarios and the effect of adding staff are model assumptions.
Subject: Projektmanagement
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