Cost Variance (CV)

Cost Variance compares what the completed work was worth in the budget against what it really cost. Earn 210,000 of work for 230,000 of actual cost and CV is -20,000: the project has already overspent by that amount on the work done so far.

CV is the absolute companion to the Cost Performance Index (CPI = EV / AC). The sign convention matches the rest of EVM: positive is good. Unlike Schedule Variance, CV does not self-correct as the project finishes - money overspent stays overspent - which makes a negative CV trend the most stubborn warning in the dataset.

The practical power of CV is in the breakdown, not the project total. Computed per WBS node, it names where the money is going: one discipline, one floor, one activity running hot. On labour-led packages the same arithmetic in hours (earned hours minus actual hours) gives the foreman a daily, rate-free version of the same signal long before the cost report lands.