Planned vs Actual Work and % complete

[Hardip]

Hi All

I am playing around with MS Project having taken a break. I've set up a
basic test schedule with 5 tasks, selected task type duration, unselected
effort driven.

I've including 3 additional fields in my basic gant view - work, actual work
and % complete. I have tasks of a fixed duration e.g. I have a 4 hour task
that will take a 2 day duration.

When I populate the actual work field the % complete changes and I'd expect
this. However, what if I have a task with a duration of 2 days, 5 hours per
day but the resource completes the task on day 2 in 3 hours. This would mean
that the planned hours were 10 hours, the actuals were 8 and the % complete
is 100% leaving 2 hours as an underspend/time saved.

Is there a method to model this scenario?

Many thanks to everyone who takes the time to read & respond.

Cheers, H

 

[Jim Aksel]

You may enter actual work, remaining work, and remaining duration in the
columns containing those names. In your specific case, set remaining work
and remaining duration to 0. This will set %complete to 100% and produce
cost and schedule variances (in this case a good thing).

I have a white paper on my blog that addresses some of these issues. See
the link below
--
If this post was helpful, please consider rating it.

Jim Aksel, MVP

Check out my blog for more information:
http://www.msprojectblog.com

 

[Andrew Lavinsky]

You might try a couple of things:

1) Add the Remaining Work column. When the Actual Work = 8, zero out the
Remaining Work column. This will set the task to 100% Complete.
2) Consider tracking by % Work Complete and not % Complete.
3) If you're entering timephased work data, consider entering that in the
Resource or Task Usage view. Simply right click on the table to the right,
and add Actual Work. Then you can enter how many hours a day each resource
works. Add Remaining Work to the table at the left, and zero it out when
the work is completed.

You're basic issue is that it sounds like you're trying to track timephased
data in a non-timephased interface. The Gantt Chart doesn't allow you to
specify when the work happens, it just smears it out across the task. Task
or Resource Usage are the only views that allow you to plug in hours on specific
days.


-A

 

[Gérard Ducouret]

Hardip,

After entering the Actual Work (5h on day 1 and 3h on day 2) in the Task
Usage or Resource Usage view, set the Remaining Work to zero.
Hope this helps,
--
Gérard Ducouret

[Project MVP]
www.pragmasoft.fr
Un livre sur Project Server 2007 pour le Chef de projet:
http://www.lmet.fr/advsearch.cgi?_EXPRESSION=ducouret&_DISTANCE=10&_PAGE=1