Guide to Control Account - Earned Value Management

Control Account is a critical component of Earned Value Management in project management. It acts as a management control point to monitor and control cost and schedule performance.

Why is it important?
A control account is significant as it helps managers to track the performance and forecast the outcomes of a project more accurately. It allows for the integration of scope, schedule, and cost objectives and assists in performance measurement.

What is it?
Control Account is a management point at which scope, budget (resource plans), actual costs, and schedule are integrated and compared for the earned value performance measurement. It represents a task, work package or a group of work packages for which cost and schedule can be controlled.

How it works?
Control Account involves the process of planning, assessing, and controlling job costs. It uses Planned Value (PV), Earned Value (EV), and Actual Cost (AC) metrics. The difference between EV and PV is known as Schedule Variance (SV) and between EV and AC gives Cost Variance (CV). Any positive variance indicates good performance whereas negative variance indicates underperformance.

Exam Tips: Answering Questions on Control Account
1. Understand the basic concept: Be able to define control account and its purpose. Understanding the structure of Control Account Plan (CAP) can also be very helpful.
2. Know how to apply it: Understand how to calculate Schedule Variance (SV) and Cost Variance (CV) in earned value analysis context.
3. Understand the implications: Understand what the variances indicate about the performance of the project.
4. Practice problems involving control account: Try to solve as many questions as possible. The more you practice, the more confident you'll be during the examination.