Measuring Time

Measuring Time

Improving project performance using earned value management

An awarded dynamic scheduling research study by Mario Vanhoucke as a result of research projects at Ghent University and Vlerick Business School and the development of a commercial software tool ProTrack at OR-AS.

About this book

Meant to complement rather than compete with the existing books on the subject, this book deals with the project performance and control phases of the project life cycle to present a detailed investigation of the project's time performance measurement methods and risk analysis techniques in order to evaluate existing and newly developed methods in terms of their abilities to improve the corrective actions decision-making process during project tracking. As readers apply what is learned from the book, EVM practices will become even more effective in project management and cost engineering. Individual chapters look at simulation studies in forecast accuracy, schedule adherence, time sensitivity, activity sensitivity and using top-down or bottom-up project tracking. The book also offers an actual real-life case study, a short tutorial on the EVM use in ProTrack, and conclusions on the relative effectiveness for each technique presented.

Written for researchers and practitioners in project management; researchers and practitioners in Operations Research, especially in production and manufacturing; graduate and upper-level undergraduate students in these fields.

Awarded by the International Project Management Association (IPMA) in Rome (Italy, 2008) and the Project Management Institute - Belgian chapter in Brussels (Belgium, 2007).

Published by Springer (www.springer.com) in the International Series in Operations Research & Management Science, Volume 136 (ISBN 978-1-4419-1013-4).

Download the 4,100 project files that have been used in the computational experiments in text format (for researchers) or ProTrack format (for software users).

Errata: Like in any other book, errors occur due to miscalculations, production or printing errors or simply because of (stupid) mistakes. Any error can be reported here. A list of corrections can be found here.

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