ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Earned schedule

Earned Schedule is a way to know how much progress you've made on a project and how much more you need to do to complete it on time. Imagine you're building a Lego house, and you have 100 pieces to put together. Every time you finish putting some pieces together, you get a little bit closer to completing the house.

In earned schedule, your Lego pieces are represented by "work packages" that make up your project. When you complete a work package, you earn some "budgeted cost of work performed (BCWP)," which tells you how much progress you've made. So if you complete 10 work packages out of 100, you've earned 10% of your BCWP.

Now, let's say your Lego house has a deadline of two hours. If you want to know whether you're on track to finish on time, you can use the earned schedule formula. This formula compares the work done to the time you have left to finish the project. So if you've earned 10% of your BCWP but you're halfway through your two-hour deadline, you're behind schedule. You need to work faster to catch up.

Overall, earned schedule lets you see whether you're on track to meet your deadline and how much work you need to do to get there. It's like a progress bar for your Lego house or any project you're working on!