In my time as an undergraduate research assistant, I was charged to create, oversee, and execute my part in a much larger drug discovery and development project. Similar to what Roberto said, I was not aware of the terminology “planned value, actual cost, and cost variance” at the time. I only knew that I was either under or over budget at any one time in my end of the project. Looking back to a point roughly ¾ though my project, that have had a total project budget of $250, I can calculate that my planned value was 0.75*250=$187.5. In addition, my earned value was 0.7*250= $170 which meant my schedule variance came in at $-8.75. At the conclusion of the project, my actual cost ended up being $255.00 which was due to a particular step in the organic synthesis being an unforeseen issue. At the time, simply having a rough idea whether I was over or under budget was sufficient. However, utilizing these new equations gives a much clearer picture of the actual numbers during a project which is critical as larger, more complex projects are undertaken.