Tracking Progress through Earned Value

Considered a gross misnomer by some, earned value for progress tracking in software development projects is still little known in the software industry. But the concept shouldn't be so unfamiliar: tracking progress by earned value is similar to tracking progress through burndown charts-the ubiquitous, simple and powerful visuals that are so popular in agile software development. The two techniques, although developed independently in very different contexts, are similar in terms of their information content. This isn't a new discovery: Alistair Cockburn talked about the relationship between earned value and burndown charts as early as 2004 in Chapter 3 of his book Crystal Clear (Addison-Wesley, 2004). Section 7.3 of Gngori Melnik's and Gerard Meszaros' volume 1 of Acceptance Test Engineering Guide also discusses the same relationship.