Using Evms to Structure the WBS for Maximum Value

¶ … lowest level possible, as Ruskin (2004) advocates, because it prevents individuals from attempting to "game the system," to "look good," or to falsify their actual progress, which is more like to happen in 50-50 approach, where the individual or team is credited simply for beginning. With the 0-100 approach, there is no credit received until completion and passing the EVM assessment (Earned Value Analysis, 2012). Even with quarterly approaches, there is the possibility that EVMs become somewhat meaningless, trivial or simply become viewed as overbearingly bureaucratic.

There is a sense that there is too much micro-management going on, which can grate on individuals and teams who might prefer some sense of independence, responsibility, and autonomy. From this perspective the 0-100 method also promotes responsibility because the work is not assessed until it is completed, leaving it in the hands of the workers the whole time, which should instill and generate a feeling of trust and a proper proportion of accountability at the end.

An argument against the 0-100 method, however, might be that by waiting until the end to perform the EVM, there is the risk of not catching a mistake early on that could have been corrected and prevented all the daisy-chain of consequential events that came afterward. Against this argument is the assertion of Ruskin (2004) that the 0-100 approach can actually catch such small early mistakes by being implemented at the earliest stages of work possible.

In other words, the WBS should be structured in such a way that the early stages (which are, in a sense, the most important, because they lay the foundation for a project and determine the course of the track) are reviewed almost immediately. So there is no breakdown of the work stage process (whether 50-50 or 25/25/25/25); instead, the WBS is structured so that the early integral steps are identified as single unit building blocks: the work is budgeted appropriately and the tasks are simple.

Just like in school, the early work is easiest and simplest and typically shortest. As the year progresses, the lessons become harder and more complex and the chapters longer. So, too, in this approach the idea is the same: the early work is divided up so as to allow for early correction on a 0-100 basis. Essentially, it is a pass-fail system all throughout, only with more frequent evaluations performed in the beginning so as to ensure that the project is off on the right footing.

As Ruskin (2004) notes this approach is a valid approach simply because it relieves the workers and reviewers of an overly optimistic sense going into the project (p. 28). When too much earned value is credited at the beginning of a project it can promote a sense in the workers of accomplishment that is undeserved. Too much assessment throughout the process can be viewed as an intrusion into the worker's sphere, as though the boss were always looking over his shoulder to make sure he was still on task.

This kind of intrusion can actually be insulting to a worker's sense of self-worth. The 0-100 method on the other hand ensures that the worker is given the space he needs.