We now turn to the idea of percent complete. Percent complete is a measure of the percentage of the total work completed.

Sometimes we can actually measure percent complete, as in the case where we are counting work products and we know how many are completed and how many are to be produced in total. More often the percent complete is a somewhat subjective evaluation of the amount of work done: “I have done about 40 hours of the planned 100 hours on the work package.” The work is 40% complete, and the estimate created a control behavior in the team member.

Another value of asking the percent complete question is that it allows you to estimate earned value. If the team member estimates 50% of their work package is done, and it was budgeted for 100 hours, then 50 hours of value has been earned for that job.

BAC is the Budget at Completion, or the total scheduled work for a work package or for the whole project.