What will this project actually cost at completion?
Every project manager gets asked this mid-project, and most answer with gut feel. Earned value management answers it with arithmetic: compare what the plan said you'd have done, what you actually got done, and what you actually spent, and the forecast falls out. Sortia runs the full EVM readout from a simple per-task table in your sheet.
Work Advanced Project Health Pro engine
After you install, this is the model to open.
Project Health Check (EVM)
- In your spreadsheet, click the Sortia icon in the strip of icons down the right-hand edge. No strip? Click the arrow at the bottom-right to open it. You can also use Extensions, then Sortia, then Open Sortia.
- Click Start from a template and put that name in the search box.
- Pick the card with that name and click Load this template. It arrives on a new tab with real numbers already in it.
This one runs on a Pro engine, and every free install includes five full-quality runs on your own numbers, shared across all five Pro engines rather than five for each. After that, Pro is $199/year.
The answer
One click rolls the task rows into the four numbers a steering committee actually needs.
- Cost efficiency (CPI)
- 0.82 82 cents of work per $1 spent
- Forecast at completion (EAC)
- $1.67M vs the $1.38M budget
- Variance at completion (VAC)
- -$293K 21% over budget at this pace
- Required efficiency (TCPI)
- 1.21 needed from here to finish on budget
The project has spent 55% of its budget but earned only 45% of it, so the completion forecast is $1.67M against a $1.38M budget, about $293K over. Hitting budget from here would take a TCPI of 1.21, meaning the team must run 47% more efficiently than it has all project, which almost never happens. That is the case for re-baselining now instead of hoping, and it comes from three numbers you already track.
The model
A year-long systems replacement at month 6 of 12: seven workstreams, each with planned cost, percent that should be complete, percent actually complete, and dollars spent.
| Budget at completion (BAC) | $1,380,000 across 7 workstreams |
| Planned value to date (PV) | $770,000 (55.8% of budget scheduled by now) |
| Earned value to date (EV) | $626,000 (45.4% of the work actually done) |
| Actual cost to date (AC) | $759,000 spent so far |
Once it is in your sheet
- The model arrives with real numbers in it and runs as it stands, so you can press the button first and understand it second.
- Change the numbers to yours. The sheet marks which cells are inputs and which hold formulas, and most labels carry a note explaining the row.
- Press the run button at the bottom of the panel. It is labeled for the tool you are in, and the result lands on its own tab, with a written reading of it beside the figures.
Never used Google Sheets? Start here goes the whole way, in seven steps, and assumes nothing.
Next question
- Fund the safe project or the risky one?
- Which offer package should you actually ask for?Job Offer Package Optimizer
- Big advance or double the royalty rate?Advance vs Royalty
- Ship at 80% confidence, or run one more validation round?Ship Now or Test More
- When does your rollout actually reach 80% adoption?How Long Until the Team Works the New Way?
- What would regret have to be worth to leap?Should You Take the Career Leap?
Every model like this one, and the method behind them: Schedule risk analysis.