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The EVM Newsletter™ #56                                                  May 2014
 PARCA     EVM Awards   TIDBIT #56        DCMA      NASA on CV & SV  
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Heres the May EVM Newsletter. It's a little later than usual but it is still May! Does that mean the milestone was met?

 

EVM World 2014 was a big success. Attendance was up by almost 30%, with about 300 attendees.  We have tried to summarize the key points made by two of the three keynotes. The third will appear next month. We also include comments from one of the workshops. Can you spell DCMA?  If so the articles we've included in this issue should interest you.

 

The CPM President's Award and the Driessnack Distinguished Service Award were awarded at EVM World. Find out who got these awards.

 

The NASA keynote speaker provided insights into the NASA IG report on NASA's cost and schedule performance. Does your organization behave like NASA does? Do you want to?

 

 

   

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Should the same data and artifacts get the same results when any DCMA office comes to visit? Two of the keynote speakers addressed this.

 

The Agile+EVM track was well attended with over 75 attending the first session and about twenty attending all six. Three people told me that the Agile+EVM track was the reason they attended or their boss approved their request. There will be an Agile+EVM track at IPMC in November.

 

Of course there is Tidbit #56. The first 55 have been how to implement EVM for better data and less effort. This one is the opposite. How not to implement EVM.

 

Where did you learn the last new thing you learned? Our non-EVM article asks an interesting question.

 

You can help make the EVM Newsletter interesting by contributing news about your activities in EVM, your company, product announcements, or your projects. Each month starts with a blank sheet, we don't make this stuff up! Send news to me at  [email protected]  

 

 

Ray Stratton, PMP, EVP 

Editor

 

BLOCK1 EVM WORLD 2014

EVM World 2014 just concluded in San Antonio. Were you there? If not you missed about 300 members of the worldwide EVM community, great presentations, good food, and a stroll along The Riverwalk. Attendance was up almost 30% over last year's EVM World. Don't miss next year's EVM World 2015 in New Orleans - the party continues.

 

A show of hands indicated that commercial and corporate interest was high with many first timers from this group.

 

The contributions of two recent EVM community passings were highlighted in two morning sessions. Gaile Argiro was acknowledged on the first day. She was the face and voice and engine behind CPM and PMI-CPM for over ten years. Gary Christle was acknowledged on day two. His career was marked with one accomplishment after another in the US DoD and the Center for Naval Analysis. He was a mentor to many of our present EVM thought leaders.

 

Awards were given!


 

The President's Award was given to Eleanor Haupt. This award is given by the CPM President to recognize
special contributions by any member of CPM. Eleanor's many years of support to CPM on the Board and in volunteer roles was cited as good cause for her deserving of this award.

 

The Driessnack Distinguished Service Award recognizes individuals who have made major contributions to project performance management policy, concepts, and practices, which have national and international implications.  This recognition is awarded to individuals who have provided critical contributions to the evolution of Earned Value Management and project planning and control standards, research, and education, and have promoted the exchange of theory, development, and application among project management professionals. This award was given to Walt Lipke who created the concept and nomenclature of Earned Schedule, and provided support to industry and academic researchers on the subject.

 

 

  

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 BLOCK5Is Your Organization like NASA?

 

Sandra Smalley, NASA's Director for Engineering, Program and Project Management was EVM WORLD 2014  first morning's keynote. Are you like NASA? Here are four items she mentioned as challenges to project management and the use of EVM. They come from a recent NASA IG report.

  1.  A culture of optimism resulting in unrealistic expectations
  2.  Underestimating the technical complexity thus increasing cost and schedule risks
  3. Funding instability leading to inefficient management practices
  4. Project manager development opportunities are limited due to the lack of smaller projects for early developmental experiences

 

The ten page overview of their IG report (http://oig.nasa.gov/audits/reports/FY12/IG-12-021.pdf)
should be a must read if you are a project manager or work with them. 
 
Here's an interesting quote from the IG report's overview. "To this point, when asked whether their projects had been successful, every project manager we interviewed answered in the affirmative, regardless of the project's fidelity to cost and schedule goals." 
 
Really? 
 
Perhaps this is why most Graduate Degrees in Project Management come from MBA programs! Try telling an engineer who now is a program/project manager that it's not all about technology.

  

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BLOCK2

An Integrated Program Mgmt Implementation Guide

Gordon Kranz, Deputy Director, Earned Value Management, PARCA Office, OSD, conducted an EVM WORLD 2014 workshop titled "Dod IPM System Implementation Instruction". At the workshop he described efforts

underway to create a DOD Integrated Program Management (IPM) Implementation Guide. When completed this guide will define a set of review team expectations so that all DoD compliance reviews are conducted consistently regardless of the agency or region. The goal is obtain the same review outcome regardless of the DOD component involved (Intel, SupShips, DCMA, DCAA,e tc.) or region.  Among the objectives are to:

 

  • Provide clear OSD interpretations of ANSI 748 Guidelines
  • Define OSD's strategic intent of each guideline
  • Determine the PM's benefit of each guideline
  • Reduce perceived burdens in EVMS
  • Address exceptions (ships, production efforts, etc.)
  • Consider other business systems existing approvals
 

The audience was told to expect the Guide later this year.

 

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Quotable Quote
quill

"

I am always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught."


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Winston Churchill,

former British prime minister

BLOCK3

One DCMA, Nationwide

 

Joe. Sweeney, Senior Executive Service, Executive Director of the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) Portfolio Management & Integration (PM&I) Directorate presented the "DCMA EVMS Line of Service" as the second keynote. New leadership will be in place on 6 June with a goal of finding a way to make EVMS work better. 

 

Presently there is a disconnect between surveillance reviews and compliance reviews, and regional expectations during these reviews. One effort will be to reconnect surveillance reviews and compliance reviews so that the same rules apply. Contractors should expect the same outcomes regardless of the review or the region.

 

He discussed an "interpretive annex" for surveillance and compliance reviews. The goal is to have a common intrepretive guide for use throughout DCMA. Contractor should expect to see a standard list of artificts. 

 

Right now there are over 150 attributes and 300 test steps to show compliance to 32 Guidelines. So far they have trimmed the list from 155 down to about 60 attributes and 330 test steps down to about 135.  Sound like a step in the right direction. 

 

DCMA will also begin to collect internal metrics on their reviews with the goal of understanding and improving their review processes.

 

   

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BLOCK4Tidbit #56, EVM Unsold

Hopefully all 55 previous tidbits have helped someone implement EVM better, easier, or less costly. This month is Tidbit on how to unravel your efforts to do EVM. This is a true story of a past client's EVM experiences.

 

Your senior management heard of EVM and wants to use it. You find a well respected and supportive consultant. You get training. You develop EVM tools. You say "goodbye" to your consultant/trainer. You make a baseline. You run for two months. Your division management wants to show it off to the president of the international company (40000 people strong) during his USA visit.  

 

One problem, the EVM data is not showing the progress that had really been made (or you think has been made.) It's inconsistent with "perceived" reality. What to do? Call the consultant on Sunday, the day before the presentation, to provide you an explanation for the EVM data you can tell the president. 

 

The EVM data is D.O.A.

 

Monday comes. (I was not there.) Here is the conversation I think might have occurred. "We using EVM but right now the data are not showing our real progress. It is showing us behind and we know we are close to on schedule."

 

EVM Unsold.

 

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Management Technologies Products & Services 
EVPrep and EVM Workshops

EVPrep Exam Prep Workshop (14 PDUs)

 

The workshop covers all the topics likely covered in the exam and provides exam-like questions 

EVP Pin

and workshop discussion about each question and the possible answers. This workshop also includes an EVM analysis question to help prepare you for the three page written essay in Part II (was part IV).

  

"Ray, your course is excellent preparation for the EVP Certification test. Your questions were comprehensive like the test and somewhat harder (more complex) than the real test. Your preparation course especially helped with the memo."

Jeff Kottmyer

NASA

  

Do you have an  EVP FAQ?  

(Link :http://www.mgmt-technologies.com/EVP%20FAQ.html)

 

Does our EVPrep workshop and/or EVP Study Guide really help with the EVP exam?

(Link: http://www.mgmt-technologies.com/earned%20value%20management%20EVP%20Study%20Guide.html)

  

Using these data and data from AACE regarding yearly totals of EVP exams taken and exams passed we did some statistical analysis.

 

Yes, our EVPrep products are effective in increasing the likelihood of passing the EVP exam.

  

Earned Value Experience (CAM) Workshop (14 PDUs)

Classroom

 

You'll experience creating an earned value management baseline, determining earned value from project status,calculating earned value management indices, and estimating final cost and completion date. This workshop is perfect for team leads, control account managers, financial and schedule control staff,project and program managers, and chief project officers.

 

Excel EzEVM™Templates may be retained by attendees to implement earned value management in their organization.

 

Tidbits #1 through #55.

 

Where can you go to find old EVM Newsletter Tidbits?

map

 

Since August of 2009 each EVM Newsletter has included a tidbit to help make EVM work better, be less costly, or more accurate, or timelier. Until now the only index to previous EVM Newsletters was by Month and Year. Not very useful since most EVM Newsletter content is time sensitive. But the Tidbits are not. 

 

So now all the Tidbits are available via a link (http://www.mgmt-technologies.com/The%20EVM%20Newsletter%20tidbits%20archive.htmlthat lists each topic or theme. The link is on all our web pages as well. 

     

 

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Conferences and Events

 

AACE International Annual Meeting
WHEN: 15-18 June 2014

WHERE: New Orleans, LA, USA

MORE INFO: AACE

 

9th ICEC World Congress

WHEN: 20-22 October 2014

WHERE: Milano Italy

MORE INFO: TBD

 

PMI Global Congress 2014 - EMEA

WHEN: 5-7 May 2014

WHERE: Dubai, United Arab Emirates

MORE INFO: TBD

 

PMI Global Congress 2014 - North America

WHEN: 26-28 October 2014

WHERE: Phoenix, Arizona, USA
MORE INFO: TBD

 

AACE International Conference

WHEN: 12-13 November 2014 (Yes 2014)

WHERE: Bangkok Thailand

MORE INFO: AACE


PMO Symposium

WHEN:16-19 November 2014

WHERE: Miami, Florida, USA

MORE INFO:  TBD

 

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BLOCK9How Did You Learn Your Last New Fact?

 

Late one sleepless night I watched the original 1961 B&W movie "Village of the Dammed". Still a great story and well done considering the state of special effects at the time. If you don't know the story, a

 

village is mysteriously "put to sleep" for a few hours and everyone wakes up fine. 

Two months later every woman of childbearing age is pregnant and they all give birth to remarkably identical children. It's discovered that as one ten month old figures out how to open a trick box all the children know how even if they don't see it done. 

Here in 2014 we are there. Learn something, post it, Google it, it becomes common knowledge to everyone.

 

The Internet might be the next level of human consciousness and evolution, for better or worse. How did you learn your last new fact?

 

  

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R.E.P. logo
   

Copyright 2014, Management Technologies 

 

The EVM Newsletter, EVPrep, The Earned Value Management Maturity Model, EVM3, EzEVM, 
The CAM^Exam, and The Earned Value Experience are trademarks of Management Technologies.

 

The Earned Value Professional, EVP, and the AEP logo
 are marks of the Association for the Advancement of Cost Engineering, International. (AACE�).

 

The PMP, PMBOK, PMI, and R.E.P. , and the Registered Education Provider logo are
registered marks of the Project Management Institute, Inc.

 

EVM World is a 
registered trademark of the College of Performance Management, Inc.

 

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