Effort, Duration, Resources independently

[joergn]

Hi experts

A colleague has the following problem:

"I need duration, effort and %work complete to be independent of each
other but can't seem to get it to behave. For example, I want to be
able to say that a task is 10days effort over a 20 day duration and is
40% complete (without having Resources entered). I then want to be able
to change any of these without the other being impacted. Also if I
enter the resources the percentage completed changes. I don't know of
any solution. Do you?

Looking at the project plan summarized tasks I also realized that the
amount summed up for effort is not the sum of the subtasks. "

I have no clue. Can you help?

Thanks a lot

Jörg

 

[davegb]

Hi experts

A colleague has the following problem:

"I need duration, effort and %work complete to be independent of each
other but can't seem to get it to behave. For example, I want to be
able to say that a task is 10days effort over a 20 day duration and is
40% complete (without having Resources entered). I then want to be able
to change any of these without the other being impacted. Also if I
enter the resources the percentage completed changes. I don't know of
any solution. Do you?

Looking at the project plan summarized tasks I also realized that the
amount summed up for effort is not the sum of the subtasks. "

I have no clue. Can you help?

Thanks a lot

You may want to look at %Work Complete or % Physical Complete instead
of % Complete. Even if you do, you can't disconnect the 3 variables.
Project follows a simple formula, Work = Duration x Units because the 3
ARE related. If I tell the software that we've done 8 hrs of work,
there are 8 more to go, and we're 20% Work Complete, I've got problems.


What a lot of people new to scheduling miss it that scheduling is a
"discipline". This means that like other disciplines, there are laws
and rules and someone can't come along and redefine them at will, at
least not without showing rigorous proof that the old laws/rules are
wrong. If you go to the Physics forum and say "e does not equal mc
squared", you're going to get an argument! The same kind of thinking
applies here.

Of course, no one can stop you from going off on your own and
redefining the laws of physics or of scheduling. But it you want
support in helping you apply Project, then you need to understand that
it follows the rules of the discipline of scheduling and so will those
of us supporting it.

As for your question on Summary lines, I'm not clear on what you mean
by "effort". Can you clarify?

Hope this helps in your world.

 

[St Dilbert]

On Tools/Options/Calculation deselect "updating task status updates
resource status". This will help you somewhat in separating duration,
effort and completion, though there are some more quirks. Especially
you need to find out a strict sequence in updating the variables. To
keep this simple, I would also strongly recommend switching from
automatic calculation and levelling to manual.

Note that there are three different %complete that you can map to the
sides of the iron triangle: "%complete" maps to time/duration;
"%workcomplete" maps to effort/cost/timecardhours and finally
"%physical complete" maps to scope/delivery. You will want to switch
your earned value method to "physical % complete" and adjust the
default views a bit to completely configure the separate tracking.

As far as the basic MSP formula work=units*duration goes - yes, it's
simple to understand and yes MSP wants to stick to it. Makes sense for
planning, but not for tracking: it's exactly comparing the estimate of
the planning phase (where the formula must be active) preserved in the
baseline with reality (where the formula should only be active when
reality exactly follows plan) - so me too, I like to configure MSP in a
way that allows me to see the difference between plan and actual.

 

[Steve House]

No no no - during tracking project needs to change the duration, start date,
etc, for a task as shown in the plan to be equal to actual performance so
that you can see the "ripple down" effects of variances on future tasks and
project completion. If I have a critical task that starts a month later
than planned and then also takes a month longer to complete than originally
expected, it will finish two months later than planned and since it is a
critical task, that absolutely positively means that the project itself is
going to finish at least 2 months late unless we take corrective action
somewhere in the portion of the project that is still to come. When
tracking, project's job is to continually update the plan to show you the
date you'll hit NOW if things continue on the same path and help you forge a
remediation strategy by showing you the impact on the project finish of the
various management decisions you might implement. If you save a baseline
before starting work, it remains static while the plan changes dynamically.
You use the baseline and the current schedule together to compare the plan
as it was expected to unfold THEN to what has actually happened until NOW so
you can accurately predict and control what is going to happen in the
FUTURE. To do that successfully you simply must let the calculating engine
do its job. Otherwise you're using Project as nothing more than a glorified
typewriter for Gantt charts.
--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs



On Tools/Options/Calculation deselect "updating task status updates
resource status". This will help you somewhat in separating duration,
effort and completion, though there are some more quirks. Especially
you need to find out a strict sequence in updating the variables. To
keep this simple, I would also strongly recommend switching from
automatic calculation and levelling to manual.

Note that there are three different %complete that you can map to the
sides of the iron triangle: "%complete" maps to time/duration;
"%workcomplete" maps to effort/cost/timecardhours and finally
"%physical complete" maps to scope/delivery. You will want to switch
your earned value method to "physical % complete" and adjust the
default views a bit to completely configure the separate tracking.

As far as the basic MSP formula work=units*duration goes - yes, it's
simple to understand and yes MSP wants to stick to it. Makes sense for
planning, but not for tracking: it's exactly comparing the estimate of
the planning phase (where the formula must be active) preserved in the
baseline with reality (where the formula should only be active when
reality exactly follows plan) - so me too, I like to configure MSP in a
way that allows me to see the difference between plan and actual.

 

[Steve House]

I'm assuming the default working time calendar and 1 day duration = 8 hours
duration. If you have 40 hours of work scheduled over the course of 20 days
(ie 160 hours) of duration, the resource is assigned at 25% by definition.
If they do the task in 20 days as scheduled but actually put in 50 man-hours
of work, that simply means either they didn't really work at 25% but in fact
worked at ~31% (50/160) or they put in 10 hours of OT with that work being
performed outside of their normally scheduled working hours. Since duration
is, again by definition, the number of WORKING TIME UNITS (and which moments
out of the 24 hour day are 'working time units' is defined by the working
time calendar), work performed outside of the hours listed in the working
time calendar doesn't count towards duration in the equation W=DU.

For a resource whose calendar says he works 5 days a week, 8-12 & 1-5;
40 hours of work @ 8 regular hours/day = 5 days duration (40 hours
duration).
40 hours of work made up of 8 regular hours/day + 2 hours/day OT = 4 days
duration (32 hours duration - the 8 hours OT don't count).

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

I am new here and was hoping you can help. I have read your post and am
pretty clear. What if I set my base line duration for 20days to do 40hrs
of
work. When it is 100% complete, actual duration is 20days, but the actual
work took 50hrs. My resource work more hours in the same duration than
planned. Schedule good, costs not so good.

No no no - during tracking project needs to change the duration, start
date,
etc, for a task as shown in the plan to be equal to actual performance so
that you can see the "ripple down" effects of variances on future tasks
and
project completion. If I have a critical task that starts a month later
than planned and then also takes a month longer to complete than
originally
expected, it will finish two months later than planned and since it is a
critical task, that absolutely positively means that the project itself
is
going to finish at least 2 months late unless we take corrective action
somewhere in the portion of the project that is still to come. When
tracking, project's job is to continually update the plan to show you the
date you'll hit NOW if things continue on the same path and help you
forge a
remediation strategy by showing you the impact on the project finish of
the
various management decisions you might implement. If you save a baseline
before starting work, it remains static while the plan changes
dynamically.
You use the baseline and the current schedule together to compare the
plan
as it was expected to unfold THEN to what has actually happened until NOW
so
you can accurately predict and control what is going to happen in the
FUTURE. To do that successfully you simply must let the calculating
engine
do its job. Otherwise you're using Project as nothing more than a
glorified
typewriter for Gantt charts.
--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs



On Tools/Options/Calculation deselect "updating task status updates
resource status". This will help you somewhat in separating duration,
effort and completion, though there are some more quirks. Especially
you need to find out a strict sequence in updating the variables. To
keep this simple, I would also strongly recommend switching from
automatic calculation and levelling to manual.

Note that there are three different %complete that you can map to the
sides of the iron triangle: "%complete" maps to time/duration;
"%workcomplete" maps to effort/cost/timecardhours and finally
"%physical complete" maps to scope/delivery. You will want to switch
your earned value method to "physical % complete" and adjust the
default views a bit to completely configure the separate tracking.

As far as the basic MSP formula work=units*duration goes - yes, it's
simple to understand and yes MSP wants to stick to it. Makes sense for
planning, but not for tracking: it's exactly comparing the estimate of
the planning phase (where the formula must be active) preserved in the
baseline with reality (where the formula should only be active when
reality exactly follows plan) - so me too, I like to configure MSP in a
way that allows me to see the difference between plan and actual.

Hi experts

A colleague has the following problem:

"I need duration, effort and %work complete to be independent of each
other but can't seem to get it to behave. For example, I want to be
able to say that a task is 10days effort over a 20 day duration and is
40% complete (without having Resources entered). I then want to be able
to change any of these without the other being impacted. Also if I
enter the resources the percentage completed changes. I don't know of
any solution. Do you?

Looking at the project plan summarized tasks I also realized that the
amount summed up for effort is not the sum of the subtasks. "

I have no clue. Can you help?

Thanks a lot

Jörg