A new approach for project control under uncertainty. Going back to the basics

•We improve previous methodologies for integrating EVM and risk analysis.•We show if deviations from planned values stay within project expected variability.•We use Monte Carlo simulation to generate the “universe” of possible projects.•We organize the information to make the data coherent with EVM.•We show case studies with different activity probability functions.

In this paper we propose a new methodology for project control under uncertainty. In particular, we integrate Earned Value Methodology (EVM) with project risk analysis. The methodology helps project managers to know whether the project deviations from planned values are within the “expected” deviations derived from activity planned variability. Although the methodology is new and innovative, we only go back to the fundamentals of project simulation to generate the “universe” of possible projects, according to the assumed variability of project activities. Then we organize and gather the information in order to make the data coherent with EVM. We explain the steps to implement the methodology and we show three case studies. The methodology makes explicit that the schedule and budget resulting from traditional methods like PERT are statistically very optimistic.