Once you went through this POST, you would learn how to get the Planned/Earned Value and determine Percent Complete which are foundation steps in developing Progress S Curve.
To achieve that, try to answer the last two questions of S Curvelogy technique,
# How do I load or allocate the budgeted value?
So, let’s go to the first one….,
# Do we have milestone evaluation method for progress measurement? Or Have we agreed progress measurement method?
# How do I load or allocate the budgeted value?
So, let’s go to the first one….,
# Do we have milestone evaluation method for progress measurement? Or Have we agreed progress measurement methods?
First, you might wonder “why do we need to have an agreed progress measurement method?”
In order to get the appropriate PLAN and ACTUAL % complete, you should have the appropriate milestone evaluation method based on specific and clear milestones to objectively gauge the progress of each activity.
As the percentage allocated to each milestone is normally based on the effort estimated to do, your client may not want to overpay when you are achieving less. At the same time, you might not want to claim less when you are done more works. So, it is so important that milestone progress is agreed by your team and client first prior to building S Curve data.
For instance – Installation of a pipeline work involves the following milestones and progress allocation.
Activity
|
% Completion
|
Material receipt
|
5
|
Fabrication
|
25
|
Erection
|
20
|
Bolt up and weld
|
20
|
Install valves, hangers, trim
|
10
|
Hydrotest
|
10
|
Punch out
|
10
|
Total
|
100
|
Another example for a production of engineering drawing involves the following milestones and percent allocation.
Activity
|
% Completion
|
Start Work
|
5
|
Study and Preparation
|
45
|
Issue to Client for Review
|
15
|
Issue to Client for Approval
|
20
|
Issue for Construction
|
10
|
Total
|
100
|
# How do I load or allocate the budgeted value?
After you have decided the basis of S curve data as to man hour, cost or weighting and confirmed the incremental milestone evaluation methods,
The next steps are;
Step 1 - Assign the budgeted value to each activity and its subtasks.
Step 2 - Distribute the hour of each subtask over the corresponding schedule period.
Step 3 – Aggregate the Planned Value for each period.
By following these essential steps, you will get Planned and Earned Value data.
Step 1 - Assign the Budgeted Value to Each Activity and Its Subtasks
For Example: Suppose you have 300 man-hours of piping Installation work is scheduled to be done in five weeks.
The first thing you need to do is,
Allocate that man hour to its subtasks as below.
Material receipt (15 hours), Fabrication (75 hours), Erection (60 hours), Bolt up and Weld (60 hours), etc. based on milestone percentage from a table below.
Activity
|
% Completion
|
Material receipt
|
5
|
Fabrication
|
25
|
Erection
|
20
|
Bolt up and weld
|
20
|
Install valves, hangers, trim
|
10
|
Hydrotest
|
10
|
Punch out
|
10
|
Total
|
100
|
Once you done the step 1, you should have the following table as below.
Step 2 - Distribute the hour of each subtask over the corresponding schedule period
For Example: 60 hours of “Erection” work is distributed as (10 hours and 50 hours) over the duration (two schedule periods in this case): Week ending 15th Oct and 22nd Oct as the task covers both periods. See the resource allocation sheet as below.

IMPORTANT TIP: Make sure you have an approved or baseline schedule with a well-defined WBS and activities. If a baseline is schedule not ready, then you are not ready to build S Curve for progress measurement.
Step 3 – Aggregate the planned value for each period
Once you completed the above step – 1 and 2, the NEXT STEP is,
Consolidate the distributed data from the resource allocation sheet to form Planned Value at a given time. How?
For example: As per snapshot above, Weekly Planned Value: 65 hours at 22nd Oct is obtained by the sum of 15 hours (Fabrication) and 50 hours (Erection) for the same period.
What if the project requires you to use weightings instead of man hours as a basis for progress calculation…….?
What if the resource, cost or man hour data is not available to you? Meaning, you do not have a resource loaded schedule. In that case, how can you build a realistic progress S Curve?
The answer is ......,
"Determine Planned and Earned Value using the relative value Weighting (fraction) and a milestone evaluation method (system)."
Calculating Planned Value/Earned Value using relative value Weighting(fraction)
You should be able to get the planned value using the same technique as above - Step 1, 2 and 3 if you plan to assign the budged value based on weighting (fraction).
Follow these steps,
#1 Assign the weighting value – 1 to “Piping Installation” because there is no other activity to compare the relative weighting value.
#2 Then, distribute its weight value: 1 into its subtasks. For example, assign 0.05 to material receipt – 5%, 0.25 to fabrication – 25%, etc. The total value of the subtasks should be equivalent to 1.
#3 Distribute the weighting value of each subtask over the corresponding schedule period.
For example: The weighting 0.20 of “Erection” work is distributed as (0.03 and 0.17) over the duration, two schedule periods: Week ending 15th Oct and 22nd Oct as the task covers both periods. See the weighting allocation/progress calculation sheet as below.
#4 Consolidate the weightings in each period to form Planned Value at a given time.
As per snapshot below, for example, Weekly Planned Value: 0.22 at 22nd Oct is obtained by the sum of 0.05 (Fabrication) and 0.17 (Erection) for the same period.

How to Calculate Plan and Actual Progress?
# PLAN PROGRESS
As I have shared in Part 2,
To calculate Plan % for a period, use the formula below,
=> Planned value at a given period is divided by Budget at Completion (total planned value)
For instance, you can obtain the Weekly Plan Progress 22% for the week ending 22nd Oct by Planned Value for the period: 65 hours / Total Planned Value: 300 hours
In the same way, apply the above formula to get the weekly plan percentage for the remaining periods (i.e. week ending 8th Oct, 15th Oct, 29th Oct, 5th and 12th Nov).
Once you get Planned % for a period, then you can obtain the Cumulative Planned Progress, for example, 50 % for the week ending 22nd Oct is the sum of the cumulative progress of previous weeks (28%) and current week (22%).

# ACTUAL PROGRESS
Imagine your team received all materials and have achieved 80% of fabrication work as of 15th Oct (week ending 15th Oct).
=> Firstly, refer to milestone progress table below and physical progress - material receipt 100% completion and fabrication 80% completion, in order to determine Earned Value.
Activity
|
% Completion
|
Material receipt
|
5
|
Fabrication
|
25
|
Erection
|
20
|
Bolt up and weld
|
20
|
Install valves, hangers, trim
|
10
|
Hydrotest
|
10
|
Punch out
|
10
|
Total
|
100
|
=> Secondly, calculate Earned Value as below
100% of material receipt x milestone progress 5 % of all works (300 hrs) + 80% of Fabrication work x milestone progress 25% of all works (300 hrs)
Earned Value = 1 x 0.05 x 300 + 0.8 x 0.25 x 300
= 75 hours
As I have shared in Part 2, Actual Percent Complete = Earned Value (75) / Budget At Completion (300)
Actual Percent Complete % = 25
We can conclude from these exercises that Actual Progress ,25 % is achieved against Plan Progress, 28 % at week ending 15th Oct.
How do I get Overall Progress?
Now, I’m sure that you have learnt how to get PLAN and ACTUAL % based on Planned and Earned Value data and you should be able to produce a progress S Curve for an activity. Because this is based on one activity only,
# What if you have thousands of activities and multidisciplinary works?
# How to prepare a progress S Curve in a multidisciplinary project?
These questions will be answered in the next POST. For now, try to understand S Curvelogy technique that build the foundation of your S Curve data.
Good Article
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