As you may have seen this week, you can see how your cost is aligning with budget and estimated cost using the techniques learned this week. However, though this may seem obvious, the tasks distributed throughout the project do not have a uniform cost and using EV in projects with highly skewed cost distributions will results in either false “under budgets” or “over budgets” because either a majority of the costs have yet to come or they have already passed. This is one of the many situations where statistics can be used to show something that is not representative of the actual situation or does not take into account all the key factors but it mathematically and statistically sound. If you are receiving/reviewing any information in statistical form, understanding/looking at the inputs of the statistics and the “raw” data is always a good practice on a periodic basis especially if that data will drive future decisions regarding the project. “Fudging” data occurs more often than you think and as a PM you need to be vigilant.