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Division Guides and Resources

IPMD Charter Bylaws, July 2022

Board of Directors Roles and Responsibilities, February 2023

Complementary documents to the EIA-748 Standard for Earned Value Management Systems

  • EIA-748-C Designation Memo. Released March 2015. This letter is to inform members of the NDIA Integrated Program Management Division (IPMD) and our government partners of the correct designation of the EIA-748 Earned Value Management System (EVMS) Standard. The IPMD asks for your help in promoting the proper referencing of the EVMS Standard going forward. In the future, please use the nomenclature, EIA-748 Earned Value Management System (EVMS) Standard.

  • Earned Value Management System Acceptance Guide. (Revised April 2023). This document provides guidance and a standard framework to prepare a contractor or a government agency, in the case where the EVM requirement is applied to the government work, to successfully demonstrate that the EVMS being used complies with the EIA-748 32 Guidelines and produces program/project performance data that contributes to sound capital investment decisions.

  • Earned Value Management System Guideline Scalability Guide. Revision January 2020.

    The EVMS Guideline Scalability Guide was produced to support any agency or organization which does not have a contractual requirement to implement EVMS, but would still benefit from using EVM practices by implementing a scaled EVMS. It is intended for industry or government project personnel within:  1) entities such as universities, laboratories, small businesses, suppliers, and vendors with small to mid-size projects; 2) large corporations with small projects/contracts or that issue contracts to small businesses, suppliers, and vendors; and 3) any government agency with small contracts. The guide focuses on scaling the EVMS Standard 32 Guidelines in a way that reflects the size, complexity, risk, and type of work involved.  A scaled EVMS recognizes small projects do not require the same level of detail data and control discipline associated with large, complex projects.
  • Earned Value Management Systems Application Guide. (Revised September 2022) This guide is designed to assist any organization with the planning process to effectively implement and use an EVMS through all phases of the acquisition life cycle. Appendix A of this document provides a summary of the EVMS contract clauses and agency policy documents that support OMB Circular A-11, Part 7, Capital Programming Guide, a supplement to A-11, "Planning, Budgeting, Acquisition and Management of Capital Assets."

  • Earned Value Management Systems Intent Guide to the EIA Standard for EVMS (EIA-748). Revision August 2018.

    This guide provides additional insight into the 32 guidelines identified in the EVMS standard. For each guideline, the Intent Guide describes the value to management, more information about the intent of the guideline, typical attributes, and what objective evidence can be used to demonstrate a guideline has been met. For a list of abbreviations, acronyms, and definitions, download the related Master Definitions List for IPMD Guides listed below.

    Beginning with the April 2014 edition of the Intent Guide, the Intent Guide Appendix Compliance Map Template is now a separate Microsoft Word document. The purpose of this separate appendix is to provide a source document that can be used as a starting point for a contractor, subcontractor, or government agency that needs to develop a compliance map to the EIA-748 EVMS Guidelines for their business process. The template can be tailored as needed to fit a given business environment. The compliance section for each guideline in the template will need to be completed based on how a company or agency does business.

    Intent Guide Appendix Compliance Map Template

  • Guide to Managing Programs Using Predictive Measures. Revision March 26, 2021. The Predictive Measures Guide is a compilation of more than 30 Industry and Government measures that assists a Program Manager in meeting program objectives. These measures provide a comparison of current program status against the planned measures. Earned Value Management (EVM) is a project management control technique which effectively integrates actual accomplishment in terms of cost, schedule, and scope. EVM as a management approach should be supplemented with additional measures and metrics during the monitoring and controlling phase to attain a more comprehensive understanding of current performance and to help management make well-informed decisions. These additional measures and metrics can provide valuable predictive indicators that can be used to develop and implement effective mitigation plans.

    The intended audience for this Guide are organizations that are looking for standard approaches to manage programs. This Guide is not intended to provide a new set of standards that would be required to assess program performance, but instead provide a “menu” of typical measures that could be applied. Some metrics are better suited for certain applications than are others. Each organization should decide which measures are most appropriate for its environment and select only those measures suitable for its purposes.

  • Industry Practice Guide for Agile on Earned Value Management Programs. (Revision December 2022) Agile has emerged as the leading industry software development methodology, and has seen growing adoption across the DoD and other federal agencies. The demand for responsiveness and efficiency extends to all aspects of system development and delivery, starting with negotiation of the contract, applicable Contract Data Requirements Lists (CDRLs), and effective implementation of Earned Value Management (EVM). The EVM system must support these changing demands while enabling cost and schedule performance measurement against the Performance Measurement Baseline (PMB). This need creates challenges to applying EVM to Agile development programs. This guide was created to address these challenges. The guide provides practices drawn from lessons learned by multiple aerospace and defense firms and their software development activities. It discusses a recommended approach for the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), Integrated Master Plan (IMP) and Integrated Master Schedule (IMS) content, Control Accounts (CA), Work Packages (WP), and Planning Packages (PP) to be used on an Agile development program. It also discusses program performance measurement in an Agile iterative development framework along with baseline change control.

  • Integrated Baseline Review Guide. Revision January 2023. Integrated Baseline Reviews (IBRs) are required, either pre-award or post-award, to ensure authorized work is adequately planned and resourced, and to establish a mutual understanding of the risks and opportunities inherent in a Performance Measurement Baseline (PMB). The purpose of this document is to provide guidance for the preparation and execution of an IBR. The intent of the guide is to improve the consistency of the IBR process for all users (customers and suppliers). This guide discusses the need for an IBR, the types of IBRs, when and how each should be conducted, and the necessity to make the IBR an element of the ongoing project management process. This guide also discusses integrating the IBR process with risk and opportunity management practices.

  • Master Definitions List for IPMD Guides. Revision April 2022. This document is a common master list of abbreviations, acronyms, and definitions the IPMD working groups can use when producing deliverables.  The intent is to provide a single source of definitions to increase consistency between the IPMD Guides as part of the process of creating new documents or updating existing documents. This document will be updated regularly to reflect working group needs, comments, or suggestions.

  • Planning and Scheduling Excellence Guide (PASEG). Revised September 12, 2022. This joint industry and government guide is geared for the Program Leadership Team and Planning/Scheduling professionals to recognize the value of an Integrated Master Schedule (IMS) by understanding scheduling concepts, promoting good scheduling processes, and realizing the consequences of poor processes. Using the PASEG document, the program team can build and maintain more robust and dynamic schedules that provide a roadmap for improved program execution.

  • Surveillance Guide. November 2021. This document provides surveillance guidance and describes the characteristics of successful EVMS Surveillance Programs. It is intended to assist suppliers in the planning and execution of both internal and subcontractor surveillance, as well as to provide guidance for customers and organizations with EVMS oversight responsibility.
  • Contracting with Earned Value Management (EVM) Requirements. Initial Release September 2022.  This guide is intended to enhance the alignment between contract management and integrated program management practitioners, from pre-award through closeout of a contract that includes requirements for an Earned Value Management System (EVMS) or performance management requirements using Earned Value Management (EVM) best practices. The guidance within is intended for Government and Industry practitioners, centered around best practices and Government regulations associated with program/project and contracts management; and aligns with the EIA-748 (current version) and the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) approved National Contract Management Association’s (NCMA) Contract Management Standard (CMSTM), Third Edition.

White Papers

  • Earned Value Management in a Production Environment The purpose of this white paper is to define terms, explain typical production practices, and relate them to EVM terminology and practices. Many companies operate their EVM system (EVMS) on production efforts, including Firm Fixed Price (FFP) contracts where no EVMS requirement exists. Many production contracts do have EVMS requirements - often early production efforts are cost plus contracts or fixed price incentive contracts. When EVMS requirements exist, companies must be able to demonstrate compliance to the 32 guidelines in the EIA-748 Standard for Earned Value Management Systems. As a result, it is critically important that contractor and government personnel understand how the 32 guidelines apply to production activity. This white paper is intended to help all parties understand that production activity may result in different EVMS focus or usage while still complying with the 32 guidelines.

    • Production White Paper Addendum The purpose of this 2015 Addendum to the Production Working Group white paper published in 2011 is to add comments related to compliance. The working group built upon the prior white paper to determine if compliance in a production environment would be any different across each of the 32 guidelines. Only seven guidelines were determined to require some additional comments and that discussion is provided in this addendum.
  • Services Contracts and Earned Value Management (EVM). This white paper was developed by the IPMD’s EVM for Services working group, which was initially chartered to investigate the application of EVMS to contracts for services and to recommend policy and process guidance to support the use of EVMS to manage services work. The premise of the paper is that EVM is suitable for managing many types of service contracts provided that the services contain characteristics prerequisite to the use of EVM, and the contracts contain specific elements to enable EVM use by the supplier. In the absence of these characteristics or contractual elements, other management techniques may be more appropriate and useful to the program manager. The white paper addresses challenges associated with managing contracts for services, current approaches for using EVM to manage service contracts that contain EVMS requirements, and best practices for managing service contracts. In addition, the paper also recommends a review of various policy documents for the purpose of identifying changes that would improve service contracting and facilitate service contract management by enabling selective application of management requirements, which are most suitable for the contracted work elements.

Integrated Program Management (IPMD)

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