% complete vs. % work complete?

[AlisonH]

I am looking after a large schedule involving a number of sub-projects. Each
week, the leads of each sub-project update their percentage complete on the
Gantt chart. The director now wants to know exactly how the rolled-up
percentage complete compares to where we should be if every task was
progressing exactly as planned (which as we all know, never happens)!!

I thought that I had to enter the % work complete, and then go to the
Tools/Tracking/update project menu item to update the % complete (if
everything were on track). However, this seems to update both.

I can't seem to find anything that adequately explains the differences
between the % complete and % work Complete fields, and why they are sometimes
different and sometimes the same.

 

[Trevor Rabey]

Look for other recent posts to this group from me and others, you will see
this exact topic discussed many times.

See also the forum at www.planningplanet.com for similar discussions.

 

[Jerry]

Dear AlisonH

%complete is updated whenever a resource updates its assignment data.
If i remember correctly there was an option in project "%Complete Not
Equals %Work Complete" which is correct. % Work Complete must be
updated manually. Let me tell you by an example

Task Name Work Resource
Create 10 Screens 10 hours a

Resource Did work for 5 hours and complete 5 screens. Which means that
the task is 50% Complete But project manager suggest that two screens
are not correct and needs rework for 2 hours. This means that 2 or
more hours will be added and %complete will be moved back and the task
% Work Complete will 30% Percent. This scanario can also work as
vice-versa. If you wanted to turrn off the update of both %Complet and
%Work Complete you must do the following
Open Project professional

From Tools -> Options -> Calculation

Uncheck "Updateing Task Status updates Resource Status".
Click Apply or OK
Now %complete and %Work Complete will change at the same time but
incase of some real time problem like given in above example %Work
Complet will remains the same.
Hope this helps

Jerry

 

[AlisonH]

Trevor, that's exactly the reason why i posted my query. I searched on
comparing % complete to % work complete and couldn't find anything

 

[Jerry]

Dear AlisonH

You got what you was looking for. Please explain

Regards

Jerry

 

[AlisonH]

I'm confused. How did i get what i was looking for?

I have a project that has a task that goes on for the project duration ( it
is a communications planning process, and takes as long as the project
takes). Every week the Comms lead wants it updated through until the status
date. I have de-selected the check-box that links the updating of task
status with resource status.
I am showing progress lines. If I move the % complete on the Gantt chart to
show complete through to status date, it resets that black status bar
backwards - don't know why.

So.... if i enter a % complete which one do I use - % work complete or %
complete. When I show the task dialogue box it contains the % complete.
I want to know which % complete I should be updating - % complete or % work
complete.

I am trying to determine the differences between the 2 percentages, and when
you should use each one.

All I want to do is be able to update the % complete for each task as
determined by the respective managers, and then compare that to an estimate
of where we should be according to estimated affort over the life of the
project.

I currently have a sub-project showing % complete of 66%, against a % work
complete of 38%. Does this mean that the work the manager reports as being
done constitutes 38% of the overall work, and in reality we should have
completed 66% to date, or the other way around?
The majority of sub-tasks within this plan show the % complete as equal to
the % work complete, or a higher work complete %, but the overall result is a
higher % complete. I don't know why

I wish someone could look at the dratted file!!!

Within this project,

 

[Mike Glen]

Hi Alison,

Welcome to this Microsoft Project newsgroup

Reading some of the responses, I'm not surprised you're confused! %Complete
is a measure of the Duration of a task. If a 10-day task has reached the
half-way stage, then it has completed 5 days and records 50% Complete.
However, the original 10 days implies 80 man-hours of work (using the
default 8-hour days), and if the amount of work done is only 8 hours (say
through sickness) this is only 10% Work Complete. Hence the two different
fields to measure two different parameters.

As to your original request, I would advise that you don't enter
percentages as they can sometimes lead to unexpected results. Always enter
Actuals (Work or Start Date) and follow with Remaining Work, leaving Project
to calculate the percentages for you. To see where you are vis-a-vis your
plan, you need to save a Baseline and use the Tracking Gantt view.

You might like to have a look at my series on Microsoft Project in the
TechTrax ezine, particularly #25 - Begining Tracking, at this site:
http://tinyurl.com/2xbhc or this:
http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/Pub0009/LPMFrame.asp?CMD=ArticleSearch&AUTH=23
(Perhaps you'd care to rate the article before leaving the site,
Thanks.)

FAQs, companion products and other useful Project information can be seen at
this web address: <http://www.mvps.org/project/>

Hope this helps - please let us know how you get on

Mike Glen
MS Project MVP

 

[Steve House [Project MVP]]

Adding a bit to Mike's explanation - Looking beyond the immediate question
and trying to get to what you boss is actually looking for, comparing
percent complete at some point to what your schedule if followed to the
letter says you'd be at that point doesn't really tell you whether you're
on-schedule or on-budget or not because in itself it's an incomplete
picture. If the goal is to monitor progress, to see if you're on-target or
falling behind, you should look a little deeper into something called Earned
Value which monitors work actually achieved and dollars actually spent by a
selected status date versus what you originally had scheduled to occur by
that date and it gives you some tools to extrapolate those values to come up
with a predicted actual completion date and predicted actual cost. There's
a good discussion under Earned Value in the Project help files to get you
started in the right direction.

 

[Trevor Rabey]

Sorry, I didn't have time for a full reply and this topic has been addressed
many times.
Try a search for anything to do with "Microsoft project progress" etc.
I don't know how you read the newsgroup but if it is via Google Groups, the
search there is pretty good.
A recent post here, subject
"Recording Completion when actual work is <> budgeted"

discussed this, including:

"Checklist for tracking, updating and re-scheduling in MSP:

1) Set a Status Date
2) Set a Baseline
3) Choose the Tracking Gantt View
4) Choose the Tracking Table
5) Show the Tracking Toolbar
6) Format the gridlines in the Gantt Chart to show the Status Date as a
vertical line, a nice red one.
7) Select the Task
8) Input Actual Start Date (which should be one of the columns in the
Tracking Table which you have already chosen)
9) Update as Scheduled with the Tracking Toolbar
10) Input Actual Hours
11) Input Actual Cost"