The number that only shows up if you go looking for it
A regional retail operator had a multi-year store rollout tracking on budget by every simple measure. Earned Value Analysis found the real number eight months before the final invoice would have.
THE PROBLEM
Two numbers looked fine. Together, they weren't.
Hours logged against the timesheet checked out. Invoices against the budget checked out. Neither one, on its own, could say whether the rollout was actually keeping pace with what it cost to run.
The client asked us to build a proper Earned Value read across the programme — comparing planned schedule, actual cost, and delivered work side by side, instead of cost against budget alone.
3 signals tracked
Planned Value (what should be done by now), Earned Value (what's actually been delivered, at budget rates), and Actual Cost (what it really cost) — plotted together every week, all 116 weeks.
HOW IT UNFOLDED
The trend only a ratio can show you
Raw totals looked healthy almost the whole way through. It was the Cost and Schedule Performance Indices — not the invoices — that told the real story, and told it months in advance.
Ahead on both fronts
Cost and schedule performance both ran comfortably above target — a project that looked to be outperforming its plan.
Cost performance turns amber
CPI crosses below 1.00 and keeps sliding. Schedule performance barely moves — the gap is cost efficiency, not delays.
On time, over budget
Contract closes on schedule (SPI 1.00) but roughly 20% over budget on delivered work (CPI 0.84) — visible eight months earlier.
THE COST & VALUE CURVE
Actual cost overtakes earned value from Year 1
Planned Value, Earned Value, and Actual Cost, tracked cumulatively across the engagement. The gold line starts out ahead of budget — then the rust line closes over it and never comes back.
THE EARLY-WARNING SIGNAL
Schedule held. Cost drifted, quietly, for months.
Plotted against the client's own red/amber/green thresholds, the divergence is unmistakable: schedule performance never dipped below target, while cost performance slid steadily out of the green — and stayed there.
"A CPI of 0.84 reads very differently once you know it's been sliding for eight months, rather than appearing out of nowhere at close-out."Flowing Visual Patterns — Earned Value Analysis, Case Study Excerpt
THE NUMBERS AT CLOSE
What the full analysis returned
Figures reflect standard EVM formulas, tracked weekly across the engagement. Original figures were recorded in US dollars and are converted here at a flat R16.00/US$1 for local context; performance ratios are currency-independent.
WHAT IT MEANT FOR THE CLIENT
The conversation happened at the mid-point, not the post-mortem
Because the drift showed up in the ratios before it showed up in an invoice, the client had this conversation at their own scheduled review — months ahead of the reconciliation that would otherwise have surfaced the same 20% gap as a surprise at close-out.
Schedule performance staying strong throughout was itself a useful, separate finding: it told the client the issue was cost efficiency specifically, not resourcing or delays, which narrowed the conversation considerably.
Want to see this on your own numbers?
Flowing Visual Patterns builds ongoing cost-and-schedule visibility for retail, services, and delivery businesses running fixed-fee or resourced contracts — so the trend shows up on a chart, not in a difficult call at close-out.
FLOWVISUALPATTERNS.CO.ZA