Duration is greater than time between start & finish date

[Wendy]

How is it that I can have a duration of 40+ days but my start and finish date
are either exactly the same or only a few days apart, and MSP sets the dates
to this when I change the duration?


Ultimately, here's what I'm trying to do...
I'm managing about 120 tasks, spread across about 8 different people. I
only get to utilize a couple hours of each person's time each week, so
initially I'm assuming I only get 5% of each person's time. My goal is to
figure out which tasks I can drive each week (as some require multiple people
to work on them) without overburdening anyone and guage the overall time to
complete all 120 items. As a starting point, I'd like to assume that each
task can be completed in about 1 week with the assigned resources, assuming
they have 5% of their time to give.
I realize this is a somewhat non-standard/inside-out use, but it's still my
job and I think project is capable of helping me visualize this...I just
can't figure out how.

As an example, I currently have a task with 1 person assigned at 1% (Units)
with a duration of 90 days, but the start date is 12/14 and the finish date
is 12/31. I've removed the Effort Driven constraint because it sounds like
something I wouldn't want to use and I've aslo made it a Fixed Duration task
type...though ideally my duration will only be about 5 days, and the total
work will be 2 hrs. Perhaps I'm not using Units correctly....but somehow i
need to assign people based off the percentage of their time that I can
comendeer over a given number of days and have the total hours fill in
automatically.

How do I do this?

Thanks!

 

[Jim Aksel]

That sounds odd, try pressing F9 to recalculate. You may also have
constraints driving your start/finish dates. Look at these:

Tools/Options/Calculation (tab) set to automatic.
On any task with odd dates/durations, double click it and pull the advanced
tab. The tasks should be of type "As Soon As Possible"

Other than that, Fixed Units, is fine. When you remove "Effort Driven" that
means adding additional resources to the task will increase total work.
--
If this post was helpful, please consider rating it.

Jim
It''s software; it''s not allowed to win.

Visit http://project.mvps.org/ for FAQs and more information
about Microsoft Project

 

[Wendy]

Oooh, that "As Soon As Possible" thing is something I didn't know about.

But it didn't entirely solve my issue...
Here's a task that is an ongoing consumption of 1 of my resources from
8/1/07 until 12/31/07. This will take up 1% of my resource and must extend
for that timespan. Duration is automatically calculating to 872 days...even
though I've specified the exact date span (eg...duration). I want it to
calculate the apropriate amount of "Work" for the Duration to equal the
number od days between 8/1/07 and 12/31/07 at 1% usage of this
resource....how do I do that?

Thanks for your prompt reply!

 

[Jim Aksel]

Enter task in a manner so that it starts on 8/1 using constraints,
predecessors, etc.
Task is fixed duration, set to fixed duration. Depending on your work
calendar, approximately 109 days for duration... rekey duration to obtain the
correct end date if needed. Assign resource at 1% units.

--
If this post was helpful, please consider rating it.

Jim
It''s software; it''s not allowed to win.

Visit http://project.mvps.org/ for FAQs and more information
about Microsoft Project

 

[Gérard Ducouret]

Wendy,

Just a hint:
This may happen if you are assigning a resource with a calendar and time
slot different from the standard calendar.
For ex. to assign a resource at 50% on a task, don't change the From...
To... times in its calendar, but use the Units cell in the Assign Resource
dialog
Hope this helps,

Gérard Ducouret

 

[Wendy]

Ah ha! That was the problem. Before learning about the Units column I had
tried modifyin my resource's availability with the calendar (which I quickly
learned was not a good idea but apparently neglected to fix it. Ironically,
I thought I only changed the calendar for 1 resource, but somehow it was
effecting all of them.)

Problem fixed! Thanks!!

 

[Mike Glen]

Hi Wendy,

Welcome to this Microsoft Project newsgroup

You might like to have a look at my series on Microsoft Project in the
TechTrax ezine, 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

 

[Gérard Ducouret]

You are welcome Wendy!
Thanks for the feed back

Gérard