Microsoft Project 2013: The Missing Manual

Scheduled, Baseline, and Actual Values

During project planning, there’s only one set of values to watch—the dates, work amounts, and costs that Project calculates, which are known as scheduled or planned values. But once a project gets under way, additional types of values suddenly have roles in determining project performance. Before you dive into evaluating performance, it’s a good idea to understand the differences among these values and how they contribute to measuring performance. Here are the different types of values that are important during the execution phase and where you find them:

• Scheduled values are the forecast values at any point during the project, whether you’re putting your plan together or already tracking progress. Scheduled fields like Start, Finish, Work, Cost, and Duration combine actual performance so far with the forecast values for the work that remains. While you’re planning, scheduled values are merely forecasts, because no actual values exist yet. At the end of the project, scheduled values equal actual values, because there’s nothing left to forecast. For example, if you’ve worked 100 hours so far and you forecast another 200 hours to finish, then the Work field’s value is the sum of the two: 300 hours.

• Baseline values are what the scheduled dates, work, cost, and duration were when you saved your baseline (Preserving the Original Plan in Project), usually after the stakeholders approved your project plan. When you set a baseline, Project copies the ...