In public management, improving the ability to manage an increasingly costly, complex, and diverse array of infrastructure projects has become recognized as a priority. Effective project management strategies are critical for reducing devastating project failures, major cost overruns, and prolonged schedule delays. Yet, public management research on modern project management strategies is scarce at best, contributing to a significant gap between theory and practice. To help fill this consequential gap in the literature and bridge this divide, this dissertation provides original research on Earned Value Management (EVM) in U.S. state governments.

EVM is a project management strategy that provides an integrated solution for establishing project milestones, generating timely measures of performance, and analyzing results. Potential benefits of EVM application include early warning of project failures, cost overruns, and schedule delays, opportunity for corrective action and mitigation of risk, and more consistently delivering projects on time and budget. This dissertation examines adoption and implementation of EVM in state governments for major information technology (IT) and transportation projects.

For both project types, the same mixed methods research design is used. The design includes document review, conduct of a focus group, implementation of electronic surveys and telephone interviews, and multiple case studies. Regarding IT project management, 18 of 31 state Enterprise Project Management Offices reported current use of EVM. States that use EVM for IT projects reported several key benefits of applying the strategy, such as early warning of cost overruns and schedule delays, improved communication, facilitation of corrective action, and overall improved project delivery. However, several organizational, policy, and human capital factors were found to be decisive in realizing these benefits.

Concerning transportation project management, six of 34 state Departments of Transportation reported current use of EVM. Similar to IT, states that use EVM for transportation projects reported numerous benefits of applying the strategy in their implementation environment. Here too, multiple factors relating to organization, policy, and human capital were found to be vital for realizing benefits. The results for both project environments align closely with established EVM literature. Therefore, this dissertation provides preliminary evidence supporting use of EVM in state government.