ABSTRACT
All projects consist of a set of activities that lead to the achievement of the project goal. How those activities are performed, who does the work and when they are done should be defined in the project plan. However, there is no absolute requirement for certain types of projects to have a plan – this may be because there is no particular need to complete the tasks in any set order or by any given date, or because later events will be dictated entirely by the results of earlier ones whose outcomes cannot be known with certainty in advance. Where no plan exists, earned value methods are not appropriate and they will not work.
