An Empirical Study on Project Control: Applying Earned Value Management and Risk Monitoring at Fraunhofer EMFT

Project Control within the Framework of Earned Value Management (EVM) plays a central role in the supply of information critical to the success of a project. The principle goal of this thesis is the application of the EVM Framework to funded projects of research organizations such as the Fraunhofer EMFT. The key focus point being the implementation procedure of this approach and current Project Management procedural changes that would need to be undertaken to facilitate clear benefits from this study i.e. the custom specific implementation of the EVM Framework to the Fraunhofer EMFT use-case. The implementation methodology uses historic Fraunhofer EMFT project data at its foundation, which has been drawn from over 150 projects over a time period of six years (i.e. from 2014 to 2020) ranging from quoted budgets of twenty-five thousand euros up to five million euros. The main criteria for success is to support the project managers by facilitating and monitoring the progress of the projects qualitatively and in parallel quantitatively demonstrating and detecting deviations from the initial project plan. Thus, promoting corrective iterations during the course of the project’s lifespan. In addition, the study will be used to succinctly forecast the outcomes of selected projects (via a VLOOKUP-function) based on the project phase and a deterministic weighted Scenario plot. The forecasting is enabled using EVM Metrics and Indices, supported by a multiple parameter Monte Carlo simulation. Key parameters will also be identified which deliver maximum impact on the future projected outcomes of the Monte Carlo simulation. Finally, the results will be discussed, and concrete recommendations provided for improving project management at Fraunhofer EMFT