duration vs. elapsed time

[NYLA]

HELP!!
How do I assign a duration of hours over days (i.e. 8H over 5 days) whereby
my start/end dates don't readjust based on duration.....hope question makes
sense.....L.A.

 

[Brian K - Project MVP]

HELP!!
How do I assign a duration of hours over days (i.e. 8H over 5 days) whereby
my start/end dates don't readjust based on duration.....hope question makes
sense.....L.A.

What you want is a Duration of 5 days but a Work of 8 hours. This would
put your Units value to something like 20%.

Duration IS the difference between Start and Finish (in working 'days').
Work is the number of hours of effort to be done within the duration.

 

[NYLA]

Brian,
Thank you so much for your prompt and accurate adivce. Once I got the proper
view, it was smooth sailing. Thanks again...NYLA

 

[hargrove101996]

Brian, I have a similar situation. I have tasks that have duration of 6
weeks, but Work of only 20 Hrs. When I start adding resources to the task, it
either adjusts the duration or gives an incorrect allocation (i.e. 300,000%).
Can you tell me how to correctly allocate resources to tasks?

 

[Brian K - Project MVP]

Brian, I have a similar situation. I have tasks that have duration of 6
weeks, but Work of only 20 Hrs. When I start adding resources to the task,
it
either adjusts the duration or gives an incorrect allocation (i.e.
300,000%).
Can you tell me how to correctly allocate resources to tasks?

If you do not want to have the duration to adjust you can set the Task
Type to Fixed Duration. Im not sure how you got 300,000 for a Units value.
To do so you would need a HUGE amount of work in a tiny duration ( like
24,000 hours of work in a 1 day duration)

 

[Steve House [Project MVP]]

Others have answered how to do this but I have to ask ... why do you WANT to
do this? Why not have the resource scheduled to start work as soon as the
task's predecessor is done and work at it full speed for 1 day so he gets it
donw and the project can move on? It's a far better strategy to go ahead
and have this task a 1 day duration with the resource assigned 100% and if
there's a "drop-dead" date by which it must be done put that date as a
deadline. It rarely makes sense to schedule it to start as early as
possible yet extend the work by bits and drips so it's not scheduled to
finish until the last possible minute. As Larry the Cable Guy says, "just
git'er done!"

 

[hargrove101996]

Steve, I agree with you - all I can say is that this is how the executives
want me to build the schedule. They are not familiar with MS Project and they
wanted me to build them a proof of concept to show how the tool works. If I
cannot schedule in this format, they will not buy into using this tool. You
mentioned that others have answered this question - can you point me toward
that information?

Just to recap, here's what I need to do - create a 20 hr task with a 2 week
duration (fixed). I then need to assign resources and have the allocation
based on the 20 hrs (without adjusting the 2 week duration).

I appreciate your assistance.

 

[Steve House [Project MVP]]

How many resources will you have? If it's just one resource, that means
that over the course of 2 working weeks or 80 working hours he will do 20
man-hours of work. That corresponds to a resource assignment percentage of
20/80 or 25%. If you have 2 resources to assign, 20 man-hours effort gets
distributed between them (unless you override it) so that means that over
the course of 80 duration hours each resource does 10 man-hours of work,
equivalent to being assigned at an assignment level of 12.5%.

Enter your task and set its duration to 2 weeks. Assign your resources at
the appropriate level in a single operation. Or if you prefer make the task
non-effort driven and you can assign the resources either both at the same
time or one after the other as you choose. If you want to adjust either the
resource percentage or the resource man-hours afterwards, set the task type
to "fixed duration." That way editing the percentage recalculate the work
while editing the work recalculates the percentage but in either case,
duration will stay constant at 2 weeks. Note that if there is more than one
resource involved, adding or removing a body will change duration regardless
of task type if the task is effort driven.


--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs