The Analyze tool in Deltek Cobra 5 is an ideal tool for helping Control Account Managers (CAMs) with their periodic analysis of earned value data and variance reporting. This article looks at how to setup and use the Analyze tool. For those of you still using Cobra 4, this tool is called Drill Down Analysis and works similarly.
The Cobra 5 Analyze tool allows you to identify elements of the project that have exceeded a threshold, drill down into the details and provide a narrative to explain the variance, its impact and corrective action required. It’s simple to use so CAMs can learn to operate this feature in a few minutes and most likely could start based upon the information in this article.
Setup
The only setup required to use the Analyze tool is to make sure that any structure to be analyzed has the requisite thresholds configured in the code file. In the following example the WBS code has been setup with a 10% threshold for all levels of the WBS.
The threshold values are set in the Thresholds tab of the Code file.
Tip: if the threshold values are the same for all levels of the structure, you can set the top level values and then use the Copy Down Thresholds function to populate the entire structure.
Using the Analyze Tool
With thresholds defined, the Analyze tool will color code any WBS element to highlight a variance. Green indicates a positive value, Red indicates a negative number.
In the example above we can see the first row representing a summary of the entire project. It shows a negative number for both the Cost Variance (CV) and Schedule Variance (SV). The project is overspending and underperforming.
We can also see from this high level view that all the problems are below the 1.2 – Spaceship WBS element. So we can drill down to find out which work packages are involved.
Drilling down shows us that control account 1.2.2.1 – Workshop Assembly has an actual cost for which there is no expected budget to date (BCWS). It also shows us that control account 1.2.6 – Materials has not earned enough value compared to the expected budget to date (BCWS). It also has a cost variance but not enough to exceed the 10% threshold.
With this information, the CAM will be able to examine the work packages involved and document the situation for the Format 5 variance reports within the analyze view.
The narratives will appear in the Explanation, Impact, Corrective Action and Monthly Summary text boxes of the CPR Format 5 variance report.