In 2005, the Office of Management and Budget mandated that agencies use the technique for new major information technology projects, encompassing the Bush administration’s emphasis on program performance and outcomes in the President’s Management Agenda.

A potential benefit of EVM “from an oversight perspective is to provide a picture of the status of a major capital investment as a ‘snapshot’ in time,” Bass wrote in the report.

As a result, EVM can generate metrics that let managers take corrective action if a project goes off track.

To read more about the benefits of earned value management or evm, click here.