Aditya ties the knot

Aditya got married to Shweta on 25th Apr. 08. I flew down from Delhi to attend their wedding and to catch up with Kaushik and Srivatsav who were also coming for the wedding. Looking back , the time spent with them was around 6 months in all but the clicking effect was great. We all got along well with each other. Had I not met them during the guest house stay after reaching Chennai, life would not have been so much fun in Chennai. Enjoyed a lot.


( @Green Park)
(from left Shweta, Aditya, Kaushik, Srivatsav and Priya)
(at Besant Nagar beach)

Escalating crude oil prices

Came across an interesting article on BBC News summarizing the history of oil price rise from around $2 per barrel in 1970 to $115 per barrel in 2008.

Favoraite Songs

Listed below are some of my favoraite songs
1.As Long As you follow - by Fleetwood Mac
2.Careless Whisper- by George Michael
3.Missing You- by Chris de burg
4.Without You- by Air Supply
5.Time for letting go- by Jude Cole
6.China Girl- by David Bowie
7.Every Sha La la- by Carpenters
8.Strange Love- by Depeche Mode
9.I Love You I'll Kill You- by Enigma
10.Keep Coming Back- by Richard Marx
11.Do you Wanna- by Modern Talking
12.Come Undone- by Duran Duran
13.You Look Wonderful tonight-by Eric Clapton
14.Sacrifice- by Elton John
15.Smooth Operator- by Sade
16.Penny Lover- by Lionel Richie
17.Just an illusion- by Imagination
18.I Don't Want To Live Without You- by Foreigner
19.Casablanca- by Bertie Higgins
20.Another Day in Paradise- by Phil Collins
21.Alone- by Heart

Earned Value Management

What is Earned Value Management?

Have been working on same for past 6 months so thought of putting in my perspective on the blog. Loads of data can be obtained from the net from just typing it out on Google. It essentially is a Tracking and Monitoring methodology for checking on project performance in $ terms .It assists project manager by providing objective, accurate and timely data for effective decision making.

Basic concept:

I got budget for an activity to be done (BAC- Budget At Completion).

I divide the activity into sub tasks and assign $ value to each (PV-Planned Value).

Now I measure at regular intervals (weekly /monthly /quaterly /yearly) based on activity period how much work got done with respect to what was planned . This is called as EV(Earned Value). Since I am getting the $ value against all the work which I accomplish it is called Earned Value.I will earn same $ after completing the task against $ I had planned for.

How much did it cost me in actual $ to perform that activity , how much I had to spend in actual to complete the task is referred as AC (Actual Cost). This is most likely to be different from the planned $ for a particualr task.

PV, EV & AC constitute the basic EVM.

As one can see from the chart EVM gives project manager a perspective of project both from schedule and cost angle in $ terms. All curves are cumulative figures. PV at end is equal to BAC.

There are various metrics derived out of these basic values:

EV-AC - Cost Variance(CV)

EV-PV - Schedule Variance(SV) * in dollar terms

EV/AC - Cost Performance Index(CPI)

EV/PV - Schedule Performance Index(SPI)

CPI*SPI- Cost Schedule Index (CSI)

BAC/CPI- Estimate at Completion (EAC) gives an estimate of cost of completion of activity based on current cost performance

EAC-BAC - Variance at Completion(VAC)

EAC-AC - Estimate to Complete (ETC)

Quite simple yet very powerful tracking and monitoring method . Since gives $ value perspective very well understood by all.