Using Earned Value to Monitor Governmental Archiving and Records Costs

Governmental institutions are drowning in data, and doing their best to digitize all this data for not only current use but for future patrons in decades and even centuries to come. The challenge is immense— consider all the agencies such as courthouses, offices, universities, libraries, and at all levels: city, county, state, federal. Beyond this, there are about 4500 types of file formats to contend with—pdf, jpg, doc, mpeg, m4v, wpl, etc. as well as computer-aided designs and drawings and photos. Which ones should be standard- ized on and for which types of records? And what of the unknown future technologies—how will they access these obsolete, if not antique, formats?

In spite of the massive need, funding for the task is difficult to obtain given the many competing priorit- ies. The U.S. National Archive and Records Admin- istration (NARA) is conducting a project to preserve email message, memos, electronic documents and files created by government agencies. The budget could soar to as much as $1.4 billion over the project life cycle.

However, a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on the project found that developmentcosts could end up more than doubling for the project. The GAO blamed the cost overruns on the weak application of standard earned value management principles and predicted that the situation wouldn’t improve without their use: “Without more useful earned value data, NARA will remain unprepared to effectively oversee contractor performance and make realistic projections of program costs.” The GAO report made 11 recommendations to NARA, including engaging senior NARA leadership and oversight officials to ensure that earned value data are used for decision making.

Questions:

1. The GAO report seemed to say that EV data was available but not actually used for decisions. What data do you imagine was being created?

2. Why do you think the EV data wasn’t being used?

3. What use do you suspect is being made of EV data in the projects of other federal agencies? What about state, county, or city agencies?