Evaluation of deterministic state-of-the-art forecasting approaches for project duration based on earned value management

•We consider 3 deterministic state-of-the-art time forecasting methods based on EVM.•An approach for mutually combining the considered methods is proposed.•The methods' accuracy and timeliness are evaluated on a real-life project database.•The extensions to EVM forecasting can improve its accuracy in different situations.•Earned duration management shows potential to surpass the performance of EVM.

In recent years, a variety of novel approaches for fulfilling the important management task of accurately forecasting project duration have been proposed, with many of them based on the earned value management (EVM) methodology. However, these state-of-the-art approaches have often not been adequately tested on a large database, nor has their validity been empirically proven. Therefore, we evaluate the accuracy and timeliness of three promising deterministic techniques and their mutual combinations on a real-life project database. More specifically, two techniques respectively integrate rework and activity sensitivity in EVM time forecasting as extensions, while a third innovatively calculates schedule performance from time-based metrics and is appropriately called earned duration management or EDM(t). The results indicate that all three of the considered techniques are relevant. More concretely, the two EVM extensions exhibit accuracy-enhancing power for different applications, while EDM(t) performs very similar to the best EVM methods and shows potential to improve them.