AACE 11R-88 (EVMS)

AACE Recommended Practice 11R-88 sets out the body of knowledge that an Earned Value Management System implementation should cover. It defines the 32 EVMS guidelines (organised into the five process areas of Organisation, Planning, Scheduling and Budgeting, Accounting Considerations, Analysis and Management Reports, and Revisions and Data Maintenance), describes the artefacts each guideline requires — control account plans, work authorisation documents, the Performance Measurement Baseline, variance analysis reports — and provides the practitioner-level detail of how each piece fits together. It sits alongside the ANSI/EIA-748 standard, which 11R-88 is structured to support.

For UK practitioners, 11R-88 matters because UK MoD, Network Rail, Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, and other major-programme clients increasingly require ANSI/EIA-748-compliant EVMS reporting. A controls team that can describe its EVMS implementation in 11R-88 / EIA-748 terms — '32 guideline compliance, Control Account Plans aligned to the PMB, monthly variance analysis at CAM level' — is speaking the same language as the client's assurance reviewers. A team that cannot is liable to be tripped up at the first formal review, regardless of whether the underlying controls are sound.

Practical implementation usually involves an EVMS Description Document that walks through each of the 32 guidelines and explains how the project's processes satisfy each one, supported by sample artefacts (a control account plan, a variance analysis report, a baseline change request) demonstrating that the processes are live rather than aspirational. Independent EVMS surveillance reviews — by the client, by an external assurer, or by an Integrated Baseline Review — will test the documentation against the actual practice. The most common failure modes are documented processes that are not actually followed (control account managers who do not own variance analysis), and live practices that are not documented (informal re-baselining outside the formal change control process).