What is your Experience with Earned Value?

Today, Elizabeth Harrin talked about a Earned Value Conference that she wished she had the motivation to attend.

Her discussion prompted me to "out" myself as someone who has never used Earned Value. Here is what I wrote:

Elizabeth,

Even though EVM is part of what I teach for the PMP exam I must admit that I haven't used it myself. The reason for this is very simple: Throughout my career I have managed small to medium sized projects that lasted up to about 9 months.

Half of my career I worked as a consulting PM and I can tell you that my customers would not have wanted to spend the additional money to add EVM onto these projects.

The other half of my career I worked in large companies where the projects where of such a specific strategic importance that EVM did not matter. The projects had to get done fast and efficiently. The project cost was of no importance. So why add EVM "overhead" when there are other, less complex ways to ensure that we are still on track?

This much said, however, I do agree very much with a statement from Quentin Fleming (he is "Mr. Earned Value") who told me that projects usually fail in step 1 of Earned Value: Define your scope.

I'd like to know where I stand with this type of experience. What type of projects do you lead, do you use EVM and if not, why not? 

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