Planned Value (PV)
Planned Value (PV) is the budgeted cost of the work that was scheduled to be complete by a given date — the time-phased baseline that Earned Value is measured against. It is also called the Budgeted Cost of Work Scheduled (BCWS).
Planned Value answers the question: by today, how much of the budget should the plan have consumed? It is built by spreading each activity's budget across its scheduled dates, then summing everything scheduled up to the status date. For a single activity, PV = budget x planned % complete.
PV is the yardstick half of earned-value analysis. On its own it says nothing about performance - it is pure plan. Compared against Earned Value it produces the schedule metrics: Schedule Variance (SV = EV - PV) and the Schedule Performance Index (SPI = EV / PV). If an activity budgeted at 1,000 hours was planned to be 40% done by today, its PV is 400 hours; if only 300 hours have been earned, the work is behind plan regardless of how many hours were actually spent.
The cumulative PV curve over the project's life is the baseline S-curve, and its end point is the Budget at Completion (BAC). A trustworthy PV needs only two disciplines: a resource-loaded schedule, and the restraint not to re-spread it every time the plan hurts.
Want this calculated live across your whole project? Start free with WBSync — 30-day trial, up to 30 active operatives, no card required.