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IT & cloud certifications · course 48 of 105

Project Management Maths You Can Defend

Calculate the numbers project managers report, from earned value and cost and schedule performance (CPI, SPI) to forecasts at completion, PERT estimates and the critical path.

4 modules

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What it teaches

The numbers project managers report: planned value, earned value and actual cost; cost and schedule variance; CPI and SPI and what they say; the typical estimate at completion, the estimate to complete and the to-complete performance index; PERT three-point estimates; and the critical path and float on a small network, including what a slip does to the end date. The AI asks 3 questions, places you, shows a short card per module, then gives you one calculation at a time and names the slip when your answer matches one it lists.

It never says what the PMP or any exam asks.

How long

35 items. About 25-45 rounds plus a 12-item final: 2 sessions (estimate, not timed with a real student). A calculator is fine. The tutor gives a one-line save code at the end of each session.

The modules

4 modules, drilled one item at a time.

  1. M0

    The ideas

    Concept questions

  2. M1

    Earned value

    Earned value: variances and indices

  3. M2

    Forecasting

    Forecasts: EAC, ETC and TCPI

  4. M3

    PERT and the critical path

    PERT estimates and the critical path

Before it teaches, it asks

  1. 1
    Where do you need this (a PMP or CAPM study plan, running a real project, a project-controls job), and have you used earned value before?
  2. 2
    Website rebuild: budget at completion (BAC) $200,000. At month 4 the plan said 50% done; the team has finished 40%; $90,000 has been spent. Cost variance (CV)?
  3. 3
    Website rebuild: budget at completion (BAC) $200,000. At month 4 the plan said 50% done; the team has finished 40%; $90,000 has been spent. If the cost performance so far continues, what is the estimate at completion (EAC = BAC ÷ CPI)?

What’s exact, and what isn’t

Show

Straight from the course’s own notes.

Computed by script
Every number in the key with exact fractions; every listed wrong answer computed by running its slip and checked outside the ±; EAC checked two ways; the critical path found two ways (forward/backward pass and listing every path) and the two must agree. A planted-error test (6 errors) was caught.
Sourced
The formulas and their meaning from Wikipedia (which quotes PMI’s PMBOK 7th edition) and SAS’s earned value glossary; short quotes matched the pages (re-checked 2026-10-11). The total-float formula and the slip rule in the last module are worked out by the course’s own algebra and checked by script, not quoted from a page. Formulas without a source the course could fetch (the “atypical” EAC, EAC with CPI × SPI, VAC) were left out rather than guessed.
Not in it yet
VAC and the other EAC formulas, earned schedule, path standard deviation, crashing, Agile metrics.