How calculate Percentage of Work Scheduled

[Lancer940]

I am running Project Pro 2003 on XP Pro.

I am running a PMO and have been asked to provide a weekly status report
which compares "Percentage of Work Complete" against "Percentage of Work
Schedulded".

I am not able to use "Budgeted Cost of Work Scheduled" as a proxy measure as
we are at an early stage and specific costs have not yet been allocated.

I could use Tools/Tracking/Update Project to find out what "Percentage of
Work Complete" should be but I am hoping there is a better way around this.

I very much look forward hearing from you.

Paul

 

[John]

I am running Project Pro 2003 on XP Pro.

I am running a PMO and have been asked to provide a weekly status report
which compares "Percentage of Work Complete" against "Percentage of Work
Schedulded".

I am not able to use "Budgeted Cost of Work Scheduled" as a proxy measure as
we are at an early stage and specific costs have not yet been allocated.

I could use Tools/Tracking/Update Project to find out what "Percentage of
Work Complete" should be but I am hoping there is a better way around this.

I very much look forward hearing from you.

Paul

Paul,
I guess my first question is, how in the world do you have work complete
if your project is at ". . .an early stage and specific costs have not
yet been allocated"? If you plan on tracking costs, it too late already.
My second question is, what is "percentage of work scheduled"? Won't
that always be 100%? In other words, for any task the work scheduled is
the Work field and that is all the hours (i.e. 100%). It seems to me a
better measure would be Actual Work/Work and that can be calculated by a
simple formula in a custom field.

Hope this helps.
John
Project MVP

 

[John]

I am running Project Pro 2003 on XP Pro.

I am running a PMO and have been asked to provide a weekly status report
which compares "Percentage of Work Complete" against "Percentage of Work
Schedulded".

I am not able to use "Budgeted Cost of Work Scheduled" as a proxy measure as
we are at an early stage and specific costs have not yet been allocated.

I could use Tools/Tracking/Update Project to find out what "Percentage of
Work Complete" should be but I am hoping there is a better way around this.

I very much look forward hearing from you.

Paul

Lancer,
Sorry, I didn't read your post thoroughly enough. In my first response I
was somehow stuck on total metrics rather than earned value type metrics
- hence my comment on "percentage of work scheduled". What you really
want is equivalent to the classical SPI however without allocated costs
(and my first comment still does apply) you will have to "fool" the
system. Temporarily enter a generic value for resource cost (e.g.
$1/hr). Then Project will give you BCWS, BCWP and SPI, provided you did
set a baseline.

John
Project MVP

 

[Steve House [Project MVP]]

I'll go along with John is asking how is it possible that you can have any
work at all complete if you're in such an early stage of the project that
"specific costs haven't been allocated"??? Project's budget is the costs of
the resources you *plan* to use. It's a simple calculation based on the
resources needed to do the project's work and the cost per man-hour of those
resources and doesn't have anything to do with money spent or even the
top-down budget that has been allocated by the powers-that-be. I need a
plumber for 80 man-hours of work and a plumber's wage is $20 per hour
therefore the budget for the plumbing tasks is $1600 sort of thing. Now
when we actually spend the money, we might find we've spent more than we'd
planned for or we might find we have spent less but the *budget* is the
amount we *plan* to spend and may the good Lord help us if we don't have
some idea what that is going to be a long time prior to ever even getting
close to starting work on the project. If it's the case that we don't know
that before beginning work, we're just floundering in the dark with no way
at all to manage the project's budget.

If you're not tracking budgeted costs as described above, you can get the
numbers you're looking for by plugging $1 as the resource cost rate and
saving a baseline. The percent of work that should be completed by a given
status date would then be the BCWS/BAC, the hours scheduled by the status
date divided by the total hours required to complete the task (or project).
The percentage of work complete would be BCWP/BAC, the hours worked to the
status date divided by the hours required to complete.

As an example, we have a task that requires 5 days to do, starting Monday
and we have 1 resource on it. Arbitrarily assign $1 per hour as the
resource cost. Total work required - 40 hours. Baseline BAC is 40,
representing the total work required. We work on the task Mon and Tue but
the resource calls in sick on Wed. Our status date is Wed, 5pm. BCWS=24.
BCWP = 16. % work that should be complete as of this moment = 24/40 or 60%.
% Work that has been done up to now = 16/40 or 40%. Schedule Performance
Index = 16/24 = .66, we're behind schedule by 34%.

 

[John]

I'll go along with John is asking how is it possible that you can have any
work at all complete if you're in such an early stage of the project that
"specific costs haven't been allocated"??? Project's budget is the costs of
the resources you *plan* to use. It's a simple calculation based on the
resources needed to do the project's work and the cost per man-hour of those
resources and doesn't have anything to do with money spent or even the
top-down budget that has been allocated by the powers-that-be. I need a
plumber for 80 man-hours of work and a plumber's wage is $20 per hour
therefore the budget for the plumbing tasks is $1600 sort of thing. Now
when we actually spend the money, we might find we've spent more than we'd
planned for or we might find we have spent less but the *budget* is the
amount we *plan* to spend and may the good Lord help us if we don't have
some idea what that is going to be a long time prior to ever even getting
close to starting work on the project. If it's the case that we don't know
that before beginning work, we're just floundering in the dark with no way
at all to manage the project's budget.

If you're not tracking budgeted costs as described above, you can get the
numbers you're looking for by plugging $1 as the resource cost rate and
saving a baseline. The percent of work that should be completed by a given
status date would then be the BCWS/BAC, the hours scheduled by the status
date divided by the total hours required to complete the task (or project).
The percentage of work complete would be BCWP/BAC, the hours worked to the
status date divided by the hours required to complete.

As an example, we have a task that requires 5 days to do, starting Monday
and we have 1 resource on it. Arbitrarily assign $1 per hour as the
resource cost. Total work required - 40 hours. Baseline BAC is 40,
representing the total work required. We work on the task Mon and Tue but
the resource calls in sick on Wed. Our status date is Wed, 5pm. BCWS=24.
BCWP = 16. % work that should be complete as of this moment = 24/40 or 60%.
% Work that has been done up to now = 16/40 or 40%. Schedule Performance
Index = 16/24 = .66, we're behind schedule by 34%.

Steve,
Where in the world are you able to find a plumber at $20/hr (at least
one who knows his bonnet from his escutcheon)?

John