Who's driving the EVM bandwagon?

Earned value management is beginning to catch on, says Quentin W. Fleming, a management instructor at the University of California, Irvine, but many in IT resist it because it would require changes in how they set up and manage projects. For example, IT shops would have to thoroughly define, scope and budget their projects in advance rather than employ incremental development, as many currently do, Fleming says.

Despite this reluctance, CIOs may find CEOs and CFOs asking them to use EVM as a way to bring more transparency to projects, says Robert Leto, director of the IT effectiveness practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers Advisory Services. "Will the IT community embrace it? I don't know if they will, or if they'll be mandated by the boards or the CFOs," he says.

Pressure to use EVM in IT is also coming from the federal government. Marilyn S. McCauley, owner of EVM consulting and training firm McManagement Group, says the Sarbanes-Oxley Act's requirements for greater financial transparency are becoming a driver for EVM. And the president's fiscal 2007 budget calls for IT departments at more government agencies and organizations to apply EVM.

"It's becoming a requirement in IT industries that deal with the government," says McCauley. And that, she says, will have a ripple effect that could spread well beyond federal departments and contractors.