 |
|
|
|
Government Leader home > November 2005 issue
November 2005; Vol. 1 No. 4
Inside Job: Charlie Warner, Director, IT Program and Project Management Service, Veterans Affairs
By Trudy Walsh
“What gets measured, gets done.”
Those five little words sum up the management philosophy of Charlie Warner, director of the IT Program and Project Management Service at the Veterans Affairs Department’s Office of Information and Technology. Warner and his team are using earned-value management as one of the measuring techniques in the federal program manager’s toolkit.
Put simply, EVM is the accurate measurement of physical work performed against a baseline plan. EVM can act as an early warning signal for a project that is straying off course, before large sums of time and money are lost. It also has been mandated as part of the Office of Management and Budget’s Exhibit 300 business case requirements for how major IT projects are planned, acquired and managed. Much as a tailor’s accurate measurements help to create a custom suit, EVM steers IT projects toward a better fit.
Although EVM won’t solve everything, it’s “certainly a proven tool,” Warner said. “With limited resources, we have to be good managers of dollars.”
To anyone looking to use EVM at their agency, Warner has three suggestions:
- Recognize that EVM is a major change effort and requires a comprehensive strategy to implement it. “The what, where, when, how, who—you need all these. Manage it like a program, using best practices to track progress.” VA has even used EVM to track its EVM effort.
Talk to other agencies about how they used EVM.
Give project managers a grace period. At first they may feel some natural fear associated with having to report their cost and schedule variances, Warner said.
|
|
| |  |
| Charlie Warner, director of the IT Program and Project Management Service at the Veterans Affairs Department’s Office of Information and Technology |
| | |
|
![Government Leader[purity]](/images/govleader_smlogo.gif "Government Leader [purity]"){kind=small}
