Actual Effort 0 but not a milestone task

[SR]

Hi,

I have few task for Rework after every review but not aleays there is a
rework to all tasks. When I update my plan with actual effort zero, it
convert it to milestone task. I tried putting duration as a day and work as
0. but then the project do something automatically, either is clears up the
actual finish day and reduce the % complete. if I force % complete to 100 or
put actual finish date, it convert the task to a milestone task.
Can someone help me, what i am doing wrong here.

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

Double-click on the task, in Task information take advnced, check out "Mark
Task as Milestone"
HTH

 

[Steve House]

What you're doing wrong is holding the idea that it is possible to do a task
without doing work <grin>. The duration of a task is the time interval over
which work takes place on it. If no work is taking place, there is no task
and there is no duration. In fact, even zero-duration milestones themselves
are pseudo-tasks and don't have any real existence - they're just a
reporting point, a waypoint on the map, like a roadside marker you pass
while on a journey. Hence your attempt to create a task with 1 day (or any
other finite number) duration but a work effort of zero attempts to create a
logical and physical impossibility - if no work is happening, there is no
time interval being consumed. If you had a 5 day duration task consuming 40
hours and at the end of that time you find it requires rework, the number of
physical man-hours the rework requires must be added to the total work the
task required. You might not get paid for the rework or have budget for it,
but that's another issue entirely. Work is a measurable, observable
physical activity and as long as ANYTHING is happening, work is happening
regardless of how or if it's accounted for in the allowed man-hour budget.

 

[SR]

Thank You Steve.
So basically i can not have such task in my plan. Does that mean "Reworks"
can not be planned. Then how usually people plan "Reworks"? As you said, the
reworks have to be a part of the original task. But then how will you track
the effort spent on it? If add a task upon rework, then some one can say the
task was not planned. Any other better way ?

--
sr

What you're doing wrong is holding the idea that it is possible to do a task
without doing work <grin>. The duration of a task is the time interval over
which work takes place on it. If no work is taking place, there is no task
and there is no duration. In fact, even zero-duration milestones themselves
are pseudo-tasks and don't have any real existence - they're just a
reporting point, a waypoint on the map, like a roadside marker you pass
while on a journey. Hence your attempt to create a task with 1 day (or any
other finite number) duration but a work effort of zero attempts to create a
logical and physical impossibility - if no work is happening, there is no
time interval being consumed. If you had a 5 day duration task consuming 40
hours and at the end of that time you find it requires rework, the number of
physical man-hours the rework requires must be added to the total work the
task required. You might not get paid for the rework or have budget for it,
but that's another issue entirely. Work is a measurable, observable
physical activity and as long as ANYTHING is happening, work is happening
regardless of how or if it's accounted for in the allowed man-hour budget.
--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

Hi,

I have few task for Rework after every review but not aleays there is a
rework to all tasks. When I update my plan with actual effort zero, it
convert it to milestone task. I tried putting duration as a day and work
as
0. but then the project do something automatically, either is clears up
the
actual finish day and reduce the % complete. if I force % complete to 100
or
put actual finish date, it convert the task to a milestone task.
Can someone help me, what i am doing wrong here.

 

[Steve House]

You could either track the added work as an increased duration in the
original task or as a new task added as a succesor the the original. But in
either case, the effort is the amount of observable physical activity that
is involved in doing the rework and the additional duration is the length of
time the rework takes. Your post sounded like you wanted to treat the
rework as if it was 0 effort and that is simply a physical impossibility.
Doing the rework requires a person to do some actions spread over some
period of time and that represents increased total effort in the project.
If a task that took 5 days with 40 man-hours of effort turns out to require
a day of rework, Joe Resource will work a day to do it. When that's
required, one of two things have to happen in the project - either the
original task increases to become a 48 hour effort task with 6 days of
duration to include the rework or a new "rework" task is added following the
original work with 1 day duration and 8 hours of effort. But no matter how
you handle it, you don't get the rework for free and the deliverable that
you initially estimated would cost you 40 man-hours actually ended up
costing you 48 man-hours.
--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

Thank You Steve.
So basically i can not have such task in my plan. Does that mean "Reworks"
can not be planned. Then how usually people plan "Reworks"? As you said,
the
reworks have to be a part of the original task. But then how will you
track
the effort spent on it? If add a task upon rework, then some one can say
the
task was not planned. Any other better way ?

--
sr

What you're doing wrong is holding the idea that it is possible to do a
task
without doing work <grin>. The duration of a task is the time interval
over
which work takes place on it. If no work is taking place, there is no
task
and there is no duration. In fact, even zero-duration milestones
themselves
are pseudo-tasks and don't have any real existence - they're just a
reporting point, a waypoint on the map, like a roadside marker you pass
while on a journey. Hence your attempt to create a task with 1 day (or
any
other finite number) duration but a work effort of zero attempts to
create a
logical and physical impossibility - if no work is happening, there is no
time interval being consumed. If you had a 5 day duration task consuming
40
hours and at the end of that time you find it requires rework, the number
of
physical man-hours the rework requires must be added to the total work
the
task required. You might not get paid for the rework or have budget for
it,
but that's another issue entirely. Work is a measurable, observable
physical activity and as long as ANYTHING is happening, work is happening
regardless of how or if it's accounted for in the allowed man-hour
budget.
--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

Hi,

I have few task for Rework after every review but not aleays there is a
rework to all tasks. When I update my plan with actual effort zero, it
convert it to milestone task. I tried putting duration as a day and
work
as
0. but then the project do something automatically, either is clears up
the
actual finish day and reduce the % complete. if I force % complete to
100
or
put actual finish date, it convert the task to a milestone task.
Can someone help me, what i am doing wrong here.

 

[SR]

Steve,

You are right in saying so but that holds true for Actual works. What i am
saying here is planning vs actual. In a scenario when base line plan matters
a lot, all the tasks have to be planned. Here in my case, i need to plan for
rework (not very unusual thing to happen) for various reason -
------- for estimating budget
------- track the handouts (where and at phase the task is and with whom)

in that case if i am having a rework for every phase of proj life cycle, I
may estimate them low, in my baseline schd. Then not every phase necessarily
go thru this rework. So lets say my base line rework-task effort is 8 hrs
with duration 2 days. but while updating the actuals, the task did not have
to go thru the rework and 0 eff hrs was spent on this. How do I update this
data in my schd.

If I put 0 efft, it converts this into a milestone. Some time I manage by
putting 0 efft hrs but duration as >0. but some time this does not work what
ever methos I try. I don't know why?
--
sr

You could either track the added work as an increased duration in the
original task or as a new task added as a succesor the the original. But in
either case, the effort is the amount of observable physical activity that
is involved in doing the rework and the additional duration is the length of
time the rework takes. Your post sounded like you wanted to treat the
rework as if it was 0 effort and that is simply a physical impossibility.
Doing the rework requires a person to do some actions spread over some
period of time and that represents increased total effort in the project.
If a task that took 5 days with 40 man-hours of effort turns out to require
a day of rework, Joe Resource will work a day to do it. When that's
required, one of two things have to happen in the project - either the
original task increases to become a 48 hour effort task with 6 days of
duration to include the rework or a new "rework" task is added following the
original work with 1 day duration and 8 hours of effort. But no matter how
you handle it, you don't get the rework for free and the deliverable that
you initially estimated would cost you 40 man-hours actually ended up
costing you 48 man-hours.
--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

Thank You Steve.
So basically i can not have such task in my plan. Does that mean "Reworks"
can not be planned. Then how usually people plan "Reworks"? As you said,
the
reworks have to be a part of the original task. But then how will you
track
the effort spent on it? If add a task upon rework, then some one can say
the
task was not planned. Any other better way ?

--
sr

What you're doing wrong is holding the idea that it is possible to do a
task
without doing work <grin>. The duration of a task is the time interval
over
which work takes place on it. If no work is taking place, there is no
task
and there is no duration. In fact, even zero-duration milestones
themselves
are pseudo-tasks and don't have any real existence - they're just a
reporting point, a waypoint on the map, like a roadside marker you pass
while on a journey. Hence your attempt to create a task with 1 day (or
any
other finite number) duration but a work effort of zero attempts to
create a
logical and physical impossibility - if no work is happening, there is no
time interval being consumed. If you had a 5 day duration task consuming
40
hours and at the end of that time you find it requires rework, the number
of
physical man-hours the rework requires must be added to the total work
the
task required. You might not get paid for the rework or have budget for
it,
but that's another issue entirely. Work is a measurable, observable
physical activity and as long as ANYTHING is happening, work is happening
regardless of how or if it's accounted for in the allowed man-hour
budget.
--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs



Hi,

I have few task for Rework after every review but not aleays there is a
rework to all tasks. When I update my plan with actual effort zero, it
convert it to milestone task. I tried putting duration as a day and
work
as
0. but then the project do something automatically, either is clears up
the
actual finish day and reduce the % complete. if I force % complete to
100
or
put actual finish date, it convert the task to a milestone task.
Can someone help me, what i am doing wrong here.

 

[Steve House]

Depends on how detailed you really need to be. One way, especially if
rework is the norm rather than the exception, is to make the initial task
duration estimate long enough to include any potential rework. Thus a task
"Polish Widget" might have a duration of 6 days - 4 days for the first pass
plus 2 days allowance for rework and of course 6 days worth of work effort
as part of the baseline budget estimate as well. This is what your baseline
shows for the task's duration estimate and 6 days worth of work for the
effort estimate. If the widget turns out not to need rework, set the actual
100% complete with a 4 day duration. Baseline still will show 6 days and
you'll have a -2 days early finish variance compared to baseline.

Remember, there's nothing engraved in granite that actuals must equal
baseline. In fact, it's highly unusual if they ever do match exactly since
the baseline is a record of your intial estimates and things NEVER go
exactly according to estimates in the real world.
--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

Steve,

You are right in saying so but that holds true for Actual works. What i am
saying here is planning vs actual. In a scenario when base line plan
matters
a lot, all the tasks have to be planned. Here in my case, i need to plan
for
rework (not very unusual thing to happen) for various reason -
------- for estimating budget
------- track the handouts (where and at phase the task is and with whom)

in that case if i am having a rework for every phase of proj life cycle, I
may estimate them low, in my baseline schd. Then not every phase
necessarily
go thru this rework. So lets say my base line rework-task effort is 8 hrs
with duration 2 days. but while updating the actuals, the task did not
have
to go thru the rework and 0 eff hrs was spent on this. How do I update
this
data in my schd.

If I put 0 efft, it converts this into a milestone. Some time I manage by
putting 0 efft hrs but duration as >0. but some time this does not work
what
ever methos I try. I don't know why?
--
sr

You could either track the added work as an increased duration in the
original task or as a new task added as a succesor the the original. But
in
either case, the effort is the amount of observable physical activity
that
is involved in doing the rework and the additional duration is the length
of
time the rework takes. Your post sounded like you wanted to treat the
rework as if it was 0 effort and that is simply a physical impossibility.
Doing the rework requires a person to do some actions spread over some
period of time and that represents increased total effort in the project.
If a task that took 5 days with 40 man-hours of effort turns out to
require
a day of rework, Joe Resource will work a day to do it. When that's
required, one of two things have to happen in the project - either the
original task increases to become a 48 hour effort task with 6 days of
duration to include the rework or a new "rework" task is added following
the
original work with 1 day duration and 8 hours of effort. But no matter
how
you handle it, you don't get the rework for free and the deliverable that
you initially estimated would cost you 40 man-hours actually ended up
costing you 48 man-hours.
--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

Thank You Steve.
So basically i can not have such task in my plan. Does that mean
"Reworks"
can not be planned. Then how usually people plan "Reworks"? As you
said,
the
reworks have to be a part of the original task. But then how will you
track
the effort spent on it? If add a task upon rework, then some one can
say
the
task was not planned. Any other better way ?

--
sr


:

What you're doing wrong is holding the idea that it is possible to do
a
task
without doing work <grin>. The duration of a task is the time
interval
over
which work takes place on it. If no work is taking place, there is no
task
and there is no duration. In fact, even zero-duration milestones
themselves
are pseudo-tasks and don't have any real existence - they're just a
reporting point, a waypoint on the map, like a roadside marker you
pass
while on a journey. Hence your attempt to create a task with 1 day
(or
any
other finite number) duration but a work effort of zero attempts to
create a
logical and physical impossibility - if no work is happening, there is
no
time interval being consumed. If you had a 5 day duration task
consuming
40
hours and at the end of that time you find it requires rework, the
number
of
physical man-hours the rework requires must be added to the total work
the
task required. You might not get paid for the rework or have budget
for
it,
but that's another issue entirely. Work is a measurable, observable
physical activity and as long as ANYTHING is happening, work is
happening
regardless of how or if it's accounted for in the allowed man-hour
budget.
--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs



Hi,

I have few task for Rework after every review but not aleays there
is a
rework to all tasks. When I update my plan with actual effort zero,
it
convert it to milestone task. I tried putting duration as a day and
work
as
0. but then the project do something automatically, either is clears
up
the
actual finish day and reduce the % complete. if I force % complete
to
100
or
put actual finish date, it convert the task to a milestone task.
Can someone help me, what i am doing wrong here.