duration and work what is the difference

[jen m]

are you supposed to put in actual work before putting in duration?

 

[Redneck David]

Jen,

I am thinking you are a new user from your question. So here are the basics:
When you are putting in your tasks you should be using the duration values
(days,weeks,months) as the measure of how long things will take to do. Like
"it's going to take a week to paint that house". There will be more than one
task to painting that house so you break it down.

Cut away the plants 1 day
Power wash the house 1 day
Sand the House 1 day
Prime the House 1 day
Paint the house 1 day

Then you link them together using predecessors.

Work on the other hand is a unit of measure of a resource applied the a
task. Like the unit of work for a person is hour. And the cost of that hour
is $5. And the resource has a name.

Is this what you need to know? Stuff like that?

 

[Steve House]

Duration is the length of time a task is expected to take while work is the
man-hours of labour the task requires. Put simply, duration measures time
while work measures sweat <grin>.
Task starts at 8am and ends at 5 pm with an hour for lunch. Duration is 8
hours. Joe works on it all day. Work is 8 man-hours. But if both Joe and
Bill are working together, duration is still 8 hours but work is now 16
man-hours. Or another possibility, Joe is by himself and takes all day to
do the task but he is having to juggle other things on his plate as well.
If he didn't have those distractions, he COULD have done our task in 4 hours
but because of them it took him 8. Duration is still 8 hours - time from
start to finish - but Joe is working at a 50% level and the work is 4
man-hours.

Actual work is what you discover it actually took after the task is
completed. Duration and Work are scheduling estimates, forecasts if you
prefer. They are guesses - good guesses or bad, they are always subject to
revision. Actual Duration and Actual Work are what it really took, only
knowable once you've done the task and are no longer guessing about what it
will require.

As an aside, the duration is how long you think the work will take from the
moment it begins until the moment it ends - that's NOT the same thing as the
amount of time in which you may be allowed to get the task done. A task
that requires work for 8 hours with a resource working 100% that will be
ready to start Monday at 8am and that is due no later than Friday at 5pm is
NOT a 5 day task ... it is a ONE day task with a Friday deadline. You're
not going to work on it for all 5 days, you're going to work on it for 1 day
because the nature of the work is such that once you start it you have to
give it your full attention.

Hope this helps