The Earned Value provides a snapshot of the work progress at a certain point in time. It also reflects the amount of work that has been accomplished within a given period of time and it is expressed as the planned value for a particular work. The key to having a good Earned Value Method is to have an accurate estimate of the Earned Value. To determine this, project managers need to estimate how much task the project team needs to complete within a specific time and how much of the budget for the task should be spent for the work.
The Weighted Milestone Method is a type of earned value method that allows project managers to divide work packages to measurable small segments each ending with an observable milestone. The project manager assigns a weighted value to every milestone achieved. For this particular method, the earned value is zero until an activity is completed. Once it is completed, the total activity budget becomes 100%.
In project management, the concept of the weighted milestone method is that is often used by project managers to divide tasks the take longer time periods to complete. With this particular technique, the tasks have intermediate and tangible outcomes even if they are not fully completed yet.
This term is defined in the 5th edition of the PMBOK.