Tree Trimming Project

Wil Fence is a large timber and Christmas tree farmer who is attending a project management class in the spring, his off season. When the class topic came to earned value, he was perplexed. Isn’t he using EV?

Each summer Wil hires crews to shear fields of Christmas trees for the coming Holiday season. Shearing entails having a worker use a large machete to shear the branches of the tree into a nice, cone-shaped tree.

Wil describes his business as follows:

A. I count the number of Douglas Fir Christmas trees in the field (24,000).

B. Next, I agree on a contract lump sum for shearing with a crew boss for the whole field ($30,000).

C. When partial payment for work completed arrives (5 days later), I count or estimate the actual number sheared (6,000 trees). I take the actual as a percent of the total to be sheared, multiply the percent complete by total contract amount for the partial payment [(6,000/$30,000 = 25%), (.25 × $30,000 = $7500)].

1. Is Wil over, on, or below cost and schedule? Is Wil using earned value?

2. How can Wil set up a scheduling variance?