Your project is forty percent complete though it was scheduled to be fifty percent complete as of
today. Management has asked that you report on the schedule variance for your project. If your
project has a BAC of $650,000 and you’ve spent $385,000 to date, what is the schedule variance
value?

A.
-$75,500

B.
-$390,000

C.
-$487,500

D.
-$65,000

Explanation:
The schedule variance is found by subtracting the planned value from the earned value. The
earned value is the percentage of the project completeness multiplied by the BAC. Planned value
is the percentage of where the project should be at this time multiplied by the BAC. In this
example, EV = 40% of BAC = 260,000, and PV = 50% of BAC = 325,000 SV = 260,000 – 325,000
= -65,000
Schedule variance (SV) is a measure of schedule performance on a project. The variance notifies
that the schedule is ahead or behind what was planned for this period in time. The schedule
variance is calculated based on the following formula:
SV = Earned Value (EV) – Planned Value (PV)
If the resulting schedule is negative, it indicates that the project is behind schedule. A value
greater than 0 shows that the project is ahead of the planned schedule. A value of 0 indicates that
the project is right on target.
Answer options B, C, and A are incorrect. These are not valid calculations of the schedule
variance.