PARCA has released the “DOD Integrated Program Management EVMS Interpretation Guide” for industry review and comment.
With the release of the Department of Defense Integrated Program Management EVMS Interpretation Guide, the Office of Performance Assessment and Root Cause Analysis (PARCA) has made a move towards helping practitioners think of how they can use the EIA 748 Guidelines to better manager their program. If the official EIA-748 criteria are the core facts and the NDIA Intent Guide describes what the facts really mean, this guide appears to try and explain how to use the facts to better manage the work.
Within each section and each breakout of a guideline there is a section called “Management Value” that addresses why you should care about that particular guideline. Interestingly, the language appears to be very much focused on program management versus earned value management. For example, in the section titled Identify Overhead Management (Guideline 2.1d) the Management Value is described as:
“Visibility into indirect costs is essential for successful management of a program. The impact of indirect costs on any program must be accounted for and managed. It is important, therefore, to have a process documented and organizations established specifically to manage and control indirect costs. This will help ensure the program manager can effectively manage and control execution of overall program objectives.”
Notice that it doesn’t talk about the guideline in terms of why it is important from an earned value compliance standpoint, but why its important irrespective of whether you are doing earned value or not. This gives hope that the document will be a good counter weight to the questions that often come up about which EIA-748 criteria to use to be earned value compliant? The question coming out of this document looks like it will ask why wouldn’t you use all of the criteria?
It will be interesting to see how the document will be received and utilized by industry and government practitioners alike. The document is currently out for comment through October 24th. You can download the draft version and comment sheet by clicking on the links below.
Check back here for our comments on the document.