How can I assign weights for subtasks

[yomtov]

After I posted my last post I thought a lot about why this tracking is so
important to our project, and as you said it does not make much sense "that
the purchase of 1 beam requiring 1 hour of time, 2 man-hours of work, and
costing $5 has the same weight in terms of total project progress as does the
purchase of another beam requiring 6
weeks of time, 1000 man-hours of work, and the expenditure of $5000". I
realized that this is the key to my difficulties with Project. Because the
fact is that for our company these two beams do have the same weight towards
EV because we get "paid" the same for each beam regardless of the cost that
we put in. Furthermore, we only get "paid" for it when it is 100% complete.
As long as we don't have a beam we have "earned" nothing, we have only spent.
It is not that we are trying to change the laws of mathematics. But Project
is looking at the projects' progress from the point of scheduling, budgeting
and resource allocation, and from that point you are right it makes
absolutely no sense that these two beams should have the same weight.
However this has nothing to do with "earnings" because in the real world you
don't always "earn" according to what you spend. So when I am looking to
track EV I am looking for what I really "earned" and not what Project is
telling me I earned.

Project, and critical path methodology, recognizes the passage of time
compared to the total time that is required, the expenditure of money
compared to the total project budget, and the performance of man-hours of
work compared to the total man-hours required as valid metrics of project
progress. Your method as you've described it isn't looking at any of those.
You might be able to get the subjective "percent physical complete" field to
approximate your requirements but I'm not sure you can get it to roll-up
precisely the way you want it to. I'm afraid you're going to have to go
with old-fashioned paper and pencil to do what you want. No disrespect
intended but your insistance on redefining the meaning of "project progress"
and the calculation of EV so that the purchase of 1 beam requiring 1 hour of
time, 2 man-hours of work, and costing $5 has the same weight in terms of
total project progress as does the purchase of another beam requiring 6
weeks of time, 1000 man-hours of work, and the expenditure of $5000 is
rather like saying "I know what the laws of mathematics say it should be,
but we need Excel to report that 2+2 is 5.7956 when we generate our balance
sheets." IMHO it's no more a merely academic debate on a matter of
management preference or PM style than is the correct answer to 2+2.
--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://project.mvps.org/faqs.htm for the FAQs

Sorry to bring up this old thread, but I was away for a month.

Thank you all for all the replies and help that you gave me. However I
still cannot get this to work. Here is an example that I think will
accurately explain what I am trying to accomplish.

For example, if my project is to purchase 100 identical steel beams. I
create a subtask for each beam. Now each of these "buy 1 beam" tasks will
have subtasks under it with wide variations in work, time etc. Some beams
will take only 2 hrs to purchase and some will take weeks with many
resources.

I would like to track at any point how many beams have been purchased.
That
means, that the only time that the "buy 1 beam" task will "earn its value"
is
when all the subtasks under it will be 100% complete. There is no EV for
something that is 50% or 75% complete since as long as the beam was not
purchased we would not want to include that task in our project's EV. We
can
keep track how much percent is still missing to complete that "buy 1 beam"
task within its subtasks, but they should not count towards the projects
EV.

Additionally, I would like that each of the 100 "buy one beam" tasks
should
be calculated as 1% of the project regardless of the subtasks under it.
This
way I can know at any given moment how many beams have been purchased and
how
many are still needed.

I understand the academic debate above if this is good PM practice,
however,
this is the way we want to track our project. Is there a way in MS
Project
to do this?

All help is greatly appreciated.

 

[Steve House [MVP]]

The best I can offer there is to suggest you track the number of beams
"earned" outside of Project - I would think it would be an easy model to
develop in Excel. Alas, there is no single tool that can track all aspects
of a project that might be of interest in managing it. Project's primary
role is that of a work scheduling and cost estimating application and tracks
progress in relation to the estimates it develops for those parameters.
IMHO it's unfortunate that when the pioneering PMs came up with the core
ideas behind EV as a tracking tool, they chose to use the term "Earned
Value" because "Earned" could be interpreted as looking at the generation of
some sort of revenue or other benefit that is being added to the system.
Your concept of being paid the same for each beam produced would be an
example of such a benefit, the firm deriving some value from having the
completed beams on-hand or to deliver to customers and the benefit is the
same for each beam regardless of the specific cost required to produce it.
In fact, Project doesn't look at revenue or other sorts of benefits at all
and "Earned Value" has nothing to do with the value, the increased wealth,
you achieve through creating the beams. What it's looking at is the idea
that you spend the energy of your resource's work efforts, measured as the
money you paid them to do it, and the "Value" that expenditure of energy
earns you is progress along the timeline. The value of the beams you
produce isn't an "earning" in that context and Project doesn't even
recognize that such value might exist. Hence I think you'll need to step
outside of Project's paradigm to track it.

HTH

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

After I posted my last post I thought a lot about why this tracking is so
important to our project, and as you said it does not make much sense
"that
the purchase of 1 beam requiring 1 hour of time, 2 man-hours of work, and
costing $5 has the same weight in terms of total project progress as does
the
purchase of another beam requiring 6
weeks of time, 1000 man-hours of work, and the expenditure of $5000". I
realized that this is the key to my difficulties with Project. Because
the
fact is that for our company these two beams do have the same weight
towards
EV because we get "paid" the same for each beam regardless of the cost
that
we put in. Furthermore, we only get "paid" for it when it is 100%
complete.
As long as we don't have a beam we have "earned" nothing, we have only
spent.
It is not that we are trying to change the laws of mathematics. But
Project
is looking at the projects' progress from the point of scheduling,
budgeting
and resource allocation, and from that point you are right it makes
absolutely no sense that these two beams should have the same weight.
However this has nothing to do with "earnings" because in the real world
you
don't always "earn" according to what you spend. So when I am looking to
track EV I am looking for what I really "earned" and not what Project is
telling me I earned.

Project, and critical path methodology, recognizes the passage of time
compared to the total time that is required, the expenditure of money
compared to the total project budget, and the performance of man-hours of
work compared to the total man-hours required as valid metrics of project
progress. Your method as you've described it isn't looking at any of
those.
You might be able to get the subjective "percent physical complete" field
to
approximate your requirements but I'm not sure you can get it to roll-up
precisely the way you want it to. I'm afraid you're going to have to go
with old-fashioned paper and pencil to do what you want. No disrespect
intended but your insistance on redefining the meaning of "project
progress"
and the calculation of EV so that the purchase of 1 beam requiring 1 hour
of
time, 2 man-hours of work, and costing $5 has the same weight in terms of
total project progress as does the purchase of another beam requiring 6
weeks of time, 1000 man-hours of work, and the expenditure of $5000 is
rather like saying "I know what the laws of mathematics say it should be,
but we need Excel to report that 2+2 is 5.7956 when we generate our
balance
sheets." IMHO it's no more a merely academic debate on a matter of
management preference or PM style than is the correct answer to 2+2.
--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://project.mvps.org/faqs.htm for the FAQs

Sorry to bring up this old thread, but I was away for a month.

Thank you all for all the replies and help that you gave me. However I
still cannot get this to work. Here is an example that I think will
accurately explain what I am trying to accomplish.

For example, if my project is to purchase 100 identical steel beams. I
create a subtask for each beam. Now each of these "buy 1 beam" tasks
will
have subtasks under it with wide variations in work, time etc. Some
beams
will take only 2 hrs to purchase and some will take weeks with many
resources.

I would like to track at any point how many beams have been purchased.
That
means, that the only time that the "buy 1 beam" task will "earn its
value"
is
when all the subtasks under it will be 100% complete. There is no EV
for
something that is 50% or 75% complete since as long as the beam was not
purchased we would not want to include that task in our project's EV.
We
can
keep track how much percent is still missing to complete that "buy 1
beam"
task within its subtasks, but they should not count towards the
projects
EV.

Additionally, I would like that each of the 100 "buy one beam" tasks
should
be calculated as 1% of the project regardless of the subtasks under it.
This
way I can know at any given moment how many beams have been purchased
and
how
many are still needed.

I understand the academic debate above if this is good PM practice,
however,
this is the way we want to track our project. Is there a way in MS
Project
to do this?

All help is greatly appreciated.

:

I am trying to assign percentage weights for subtasks towards the
summary
task. For example, if I have 4 subtasks to a summary task, I would
like
that
each one should count as 25% of the summary task, regardless of each
tasks
duration or resource usage.

I would also like to do this to summary tasks to a higher level
summary
task, if possible.

All help is appreciated.


----------------
This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, and Microsoft responds to the
suggestions with the most votes. To vote for this suggestion, click
the
"I
Agree" button in the message pane. If you do not see the button,
follow
this
link to open the suggestion in the Microsoft Web-based Newsreader and
then
click "I Agree" in the message pane.

http://www.microsoft.com/office/com...aabb-9e2880b70268&dg=microsoft.public.project

 

[yomtov]

Thank you. Yes Excel is excellent for this and this is what we are using
now. However it is quite taxing since we have to input all the information
twice, once in Project to manage our project and once in Excel to keep track
of the progress. I was trying to see if it can all be done within Project.

Although, as I was looking for answers I looked again in MS Office help file
and I came across their example for "physical percent complete" that quite
resembles my case. Their example is is as follows:

"Example A project of building a stone wall consists of 100 stones stacked
five high. The first row of 20 stones can be laid in 20 minutes, but the
second row takes 25 minutes because now you have to lift the stones up one
row higher, so it takes a little longer. The third row would take 30 minutes,
the fourth 35 minutes, and the last row takes 40 minutes to lay—150 minutes
total. After laying the first three rows, the project could be said to be 60
percent physically complete (you laid 60 of 100 stones). However, you only
spent 75 of 150 minutes, so in terms of duration, the job is only 50 percent
complete. You add the Physical % Complete field to the Gantt Chart view to
enter and track progress for this task.

Depending on how you get paid for the work or how the value is earned (by
the stone, or by the hour), you can choose the percent complete value or the
physical percent complete value to properly reflect this in the earned value
analysis."

So it seems that they are implying that if you get paid by the stone (like
my beams) this feature would track how many stones you actually laid. But
then the help file does not continue to explain how you would actually track
it via physical percent complete.

Maybe if you can explain to me how one would track how many stones still
have to get laid I can adapt it to my situation.

Thanks

The best I can offer there is to suggest you track the number of beams
"earned" outside of Project - I would think it would be an easy model to
develop in Excel. Alas, there is no single tool that can track all aspects
of a project that might be of interest in managing it. Project's primary
role is that of a work scheduling and cost estimating application and tracks
progress in relation to the estimates it develops for those parameters.
IMHO it's unfortunate that when the pioneering PMs came up with the core
ideas behind EV as a tracking tool, they chose to use the term "Earned
Value" because "Earned" could be interpreted as looking at the generation of
some sort of revenue or other benefit that is being added to the system.
Your concept of being paid the same for each beam produced would be an
example of such a benefit, the firm deriving some value from having the
completed beams on-hand or to deliver to customers and the benefit is the
same for each beam regardless of the specific cost required to produce it.
In fact, Project doesn't look at revenue or other sorts of benefits at all
and "Earned Value" has nothing to do with the value, the increased wealth,
you achieve through creating the beams. What it's looking at is the idea
that you spend the energy of your resource's work efforts, measured as the
money you paid them to do it, and the "Value" that expenditure of energy
earns you is progress along the timeline. The value of the beams you
produce isn't an "earning" in that context and Project doesn't even
recognize that such value might exist. Hence I think you'll need to step
outside of Project's paradigm to track it.

HTH

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

After I posted my last post I thought a lot about why this tracking is so
important to our project, and as you said it does not make much sense
"that
the purchase of 1 beam requiring 1 hour of time, 2 man-hours of work, and
costing $5 has the same weight in terms of total project progress as does
the
purchase of another beam requiring 6
weeks of time, 1000 man-hours of work, and the expenditure of $5000". I
realized that this is the key to my difficulties with Project. Because
the
fact is that for our company these two beams do have the same weight
towards
EV because we get "paid" the same for each beam regardless of the cost
that
we put in. Furthermore, we only get "paid" for it when it is 100%
complete.
As long as we don't have a beam we have "earned" nothing, we have only
spent.
It is not that we are trying to change the laws of mathematics. But
Project
is looking at the projects' progress from the point of scheduling,
budgeting
and resource allocation, and from that point you are right it makes
absolutely no sense that these two beams should have the same weight.
However this has nothing to do with "earnings" because in the real world
you
don't always "earn" according to what you spend. So when I am looking to
track EV I am looking for what I really "earned" and not what Project is
telling me I earned.

Project, and critical path methodology, recognizes the passage of time
compared to the total time that is required, the expenditure of money
compared to the total project budget, and the performance of man-hours of
work compared to the total man-hours required as valid metrics of project
progress. Your method as you've described it isn't looking at any of
those.
You might be able to get the subjective "percent physical complete" field
to
approximate your requirements but I'm not sure you can get it to roll-up
precisely the way you want it to. I'm afraid you're going to have to go
with old-fashioned paper and pencil to do what you want. No disrespect
intended but your insistance on redefining the meaning of "project
progress"
and the calculation of EV so that the purchase of 1 beam requiring 1 hour
of
time, 2 man-hours of work, and costing $5 has the same weight in terms of
total project progress as does the purchase of another beam requiring 6
weeks of time, 1000 man-hours of work, and the expenditure of $5000 is
rather like saying "I know what the laws of mathematics say it should be,
but we need Excel to report that 2+2 is 5.7956 when we generate our
balance
sheets." IMHO it's no more a merely academic debate on a matter of
management preference or PM style than is the correct answer to 2+2.
--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://project.mvps.org/faqs.htm for the FAQs



Sorry to bring up this old thread, but I was away for a month.

Thank you all for all the replies and help that you gave me. However I
still cannot get this to work. Here is an example that I think will
accurately explain what I am trying to accomplish.

For example, if my project is to purchase 100 identical steel beams. I
create a subtask for each beam. Now each of these "buy 1 beam" tasks
will
have subtasks under it with wide variations in work, time etc. Some
beams
will take only 2 hrs to purchase and some will take weeks with many
resources.

I would like to track at any point how many beams have been purchased.
That
means, that the only time that the "buy 1 beam" task will "earn its
value"
is
when all the subtasks under it will be 100% complete. There is no EV
for
something that is 50% or 75% complete since as long as the beam was not
purchased we would not want to include that task in our project's EV.
We
can
keep track how much percent is still missing to complete that "buy 1
beam"
task within its subtasks, but they should not count towards the
projects
EV.

Additionally, I would like that each of the 100 "buy one beam" tasks
should
be calculated as 1% of the project regardless of the subtasks under it.
This
way I can know at any given moment how many beams have been purchased
and
how
many are still needed.

I understand the academic debate above if this is good PM practice,
however,
this is the way we want to track our project. Is there a way in MS
Project
to do this?

All help is greatly appreciated.

:

I am trying to assign percentage weights for subtasks towards the
summary
task. For example, if I have 4 subtasks to a summary task, I would
like
that
each one should count as 25% of the summary task, regardless of each
tasks
duration or resource usage.

I would also like to do this to summary tasks to a higher level
summary
task, if possible.

All help is appreciated.


----------------
This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, and Microsoft responds to the
suggestions with the most votes. To vote for this suggestion, click
the
"I
Agree" button in the message pane. If you do not see the button,
follow
this
link to open the suggestion in the Microsoft Web-based Newsreader and
then
click "I Agree" in the message pane.

http://www.microsoft.com/office/com...aabb-9e2880b70268&dg=microsoft.public.project

 

[Mike Glen]

Hi yomtov,

You could get a simple metric by customizing a Flag field ( called, say
"Beam Complete") and entering a "Yes" whenever that task = 100%Complete.
Then filter for the files = "Yes" and count them. This, I'm sure could be
developed by using vba - if you want that, try posting on the
microsoft.public.project.developer newsgroup (forum). Please see FAQ Item:
24. Project Newsgroups. FAQs, companion products and other useful Project
information can be seen at this web address:
http://project.mvps.org/faqs.htm

Mike Glen
Project MVP

After I posted my last post I thought a lot about why this tracking
is so important to our project, and as you said it does not make much
sense "that the purchase of 1 beam requiring 1 hour of time, 2
man-hours of work, and costing $5 has the same weight in terms of
total project progress as does the purchase of another beam requiring
6
weeks of time, 1000 man-hours of work, and the expenditure of $5000".
I realized that this is the key to my difficulties with Project.
Because the fact is that for our company these two beams do have the
same weight towards EV because we get "paid" the same for each beam
regardless of the cost that we put in. Furthermore, we only get
"paid" for it when it is 100% complete. As long as we don't have a
beam we have "earned" nothing, we have only spent. It is not that we
are trying to change the laws of mathematics. But Project is looking
at the projects' progress from the point of scheduling, budgeting and
resource allocation, and from that point you are right it makes
absolutely no sense that these two beams should have the same weight.
However this has nothing to do with "earnings" because in the real
world you don't always "earn" according to what you spend. So when I
am looking to track EV I am looking for what I really "earned" and
not what Project is telling me I earned.

Project, and critical path methodology, recognizes the passage of
time compared to the total time that is required, the expenditure of
money compared to the total project budget, and the performance of
man-hours of work compared to the total man-hours required as valid
metrics of project progress. Your method as you've described it
isn't looking at any of those. You might be able to get the
subjective "percent physical complete" field to approximate your
requirements but I'm not sure you can get it to roll-up precisely
the way you want it to. I'm afraid you're going to have to go with
old-fashioned paper and pencil to do what you want. No disrespect
intended but your insistance on redefining the meaning of "project
progress" and the calculation of EV so that the purchase of 1 beam
requiring 1 hour of time, 2 man-hours of work, and costing $5 has
the same weight in terms of total project progress as does the
purchase of another beam requiring 6 weeks of time, 1000 man-hours
of work, and the expenditure of $5000 is rather like saying "I know
what the laws of mathematics say it should be, but we need Excel to
report that 2+2 is 5.7956 when we generate our balance sheets."
IMHO it's no more a merely academic debate on a matter of management
preference or PM style than is the correct answer to 2+2. --
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://project.mvps.org/faqs.htm for the FAQs

Sorry to bring up this old thread, but I was away for a month.

Thank you all for all the replies and help that you gave me.
However I still cannot get this to work. Here is an example that I
think will accurately explain what I am trying to accomplish.

For example, if my project is to purchase 100 identical steel
beams. I create a subtask for each beam. Now each of these "buy 1
beam" tasks will have subtasks under it with wide variations in
work, time etc. Some beams will take only 2 hrs to purchase and
some will take weeks with many resources.

I would like to track at any point how many beams have been
purchased. That
means, that the only time that the "buy 1 beam" task will "earn its
value" is
when all the subtasks under it will be 100% complete. There is no
EV for something that is 50% or 75% complete since as long as the
beam was not purchased we would not want to include that task in
our project's EV. We can
keep track how much percent is still missing to complete that "buy
1 beam" task within its subtasks, but they should not count towards
the projects EV.

Additionally, I would like that each of the 100 "buy one beam" tasks
should
be calculated as 1% of the project regardless of the subtasks under
it. This
way I can know at any given moment how many beams have been
purchased and how
many are still needed.

I understand the academic debate above if this is good PM practice,
however,
this is the way we want to track our project. Is there a way in MS
Project
to do this?

All help is greatly appreciated.

:

I am trying to assign percentage weights for subtasks towards the
summary task. For example, if I have 4 subtasks to a summary
task, I would like that
each one should count as 25% of the summary task, regardless of
each tasks
duration or resource usage.

I would also like to do this to summary tasks to a higher level
summary task, if possible.

All help is appreciated.


----------------
This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, and Microsoft responds to
the suggestions with the most votes. To vote for this suggestion,
click the "I
Agree" button in the message pane. If you do not see the button,
follow this
link to open the suggestion in the Microsoft Web-based Newsreader
and then
click "I Agree" in the message pane.

http://www.microsoft.com/office/com...aabb-9e2880b70268&dg=microsoft.public.project

 

[yomtov]

Hi Mike,

Thanks for the suggestion, I will try.
One issue though with your method is that I am not sure how I can apply
different weights for different tasks. If one task finishes 5 beams and
another finishes 10 and we have only a yes field how can we differentiate
between them.
I will try to post in the other forum and see if someone can help me.
Thanks again.

Hi yomtov,

You could get a simple metric by customizing a Flag field ( called, say
"Beam Complete") and entering a "Yes" whenever that task = 100%Complete.
Then filter for the files = "Yes" and count them. This, I'm sure could be
developed by using vba - if you want that, try posting on the
microsoft.public.project.developer newsgroup (forum). Please see FAQ Item:
24. Project Newsgroups. FAQs, companion products and other useful Project
information can be seen at this web address:
http://project.mvps.org/faqs.htm

Mike Glen
Project MVP

After I posted my last post I thought a lot about why this tracking
is so important to our project, and as you said it does not make much
sense "that the purchase of 1 beam requiring 1 hour of time, 2
man-hours of work, and costing $5 has the same weight in terms of
total project progress as does the purchase of another beam requiring
6
weeks of time, 1000 man-hours of work, and the expenditure of $5000".
I realized that this is the key to my difficulties with Project.
Because the fact is that for our company these two beams do have the
same weight towards EV because we get "paid" the same for each beam
regardless of the cost that we put in. Furthermore, we only get
"paid" for it when it is 100% complete. As long as we don't have a
beam we have "earned" nothing, we have only spent. It is not that we
are trying to change the laws of mathematics. But Project is looking
at the projects' progress from the point of scheduling, budgeting and
resource allocation, and from that point you are right it makes
absolutely no sense that these two beams should have the same weight.
However this has nothing to do with "earnings" because in the real
world you don't always "earn" according to what you spend. So when I
am looking to track EV I am looking for what I really "earned" and
not what Project is telling me I earned.

Project, and critical path methodology, recognizes the passage of
time compared to the total time that is required, the expenditure of
money compared to the total project budget, and the performance of
man-hours of work compared to the total man-hours required as valid
metrics of project progress. Your method as you've described it
isn't looking at any of those. You might be able to get the
subjective "percent physical complete" field to approximate your
requirements but I'm not sure you can get it to roll-up precisely
the way you want it to. I'm afraid you're going to have to go with
old-fashioned paper and pencil to do what you want. No disrespect
intended but your insistance on redefining the meaning of "project
progress" and the calculation of EV so that the purchase of 1 beam
requiring 1 hour of time, 2 man-hours of work, and costing $5 has
the same weight in terms of total project progress as does the
purchase of another beam requiring 6 weeks of time, 1000 man-hours
of work, and the expenditure of $5000 is rather like saying "I know
what the laws of mathematics say it should be, but we need Excel to
report that 2+2 is 5.7956 when we generate our balance sheets."
IMHO it's no more a merely academic debate on a matter of management
preference or PM style than is the correct answer to 2+2. --
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://project.mvps.org/faqs.htm for the FAQs



Sorry to bring up this old thread, but I was away for a month.

Thank you all for all the replies and help that you gave me.
However I still cannot get this to work. Here is an example that I
think will accurately explain what I am trying to accomplish.

For example, if my project is to purchase 100 identical steel
beams. I create a subtask for each beam. Now each of these "buy 1
beam" tasks will have subtasks under it with wide variations in
work, time etc. Some beams will take only 2 hrs to purchase and
some will take weeks with many resources.

I would like to track at any point how many beams have been
purchased. That
means, that the only time that the "buy 1 beam" task will "earn its
value" is
when all the subtasks under it will be 100% complete. There is no
EV for something that is 50% or 75% complete since as long as the
beam was not purchased we would not want to include that task in
our project's EV. We can
keep track how much percent is still missing to complete that "buy
1 beam" task within its subtasks, but they should not count towards
the projects EV.

Additionally, I would like that each of the 100 "buy one beam" tasks
should
be calculated as 1% of the project regardless of the subtasks under
it. This
way I can know at any given moment how many beams have been
purchased and how
many are still needed.

I understand the academic debate above if this is good PM practice,
however,
this is the way we want to track our project. Is there a way in MS
Project
to do this?

All help is greatly appreciated.

:

I am trying to assign percentage weights for subtasks towards the
summary task. For example, if I have 4 subtasks to a summary
task, I would like that
each one should count as 25% of the summary task, regardless of
each tasks
duration or resource usage.

I would also like to do this to summary tasks to a higher level
summary task, if possible.

All help is appreciated.


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[Mike Glen]

Use a text or number field and enter the numbers.

Mike Glen
Project MVP
See http://tinyurl.com/2xbhc for my free Project Tutorials

Hi Mike,

Thanks for the suggestion, I will try.
One issue though with your method is that I am not sure how I can
apply different weights for different tasks. If one task finishes 5
beams and another finishes 10 and we have only a yes field how can we
differentiate between them.
I will try to post in the other forum and see if someone can help me.
Thanks again.

Hi yomtov,

You could get a simple metric by customizing a Flag field ( called,
say "Beam Complete") and entering a "Yes" whenever that task =
100%Complete. Then filter for the files = "Yes" and count them.
This, I'm sure could be developed by using vba - if you want that,
try posting on the microsoft.public.project.developer newsgroup
(forum). Please see FAQ Item:
24. Project Newsgroups. FAQs, companion products and other useful
Project information can be seen at this web address:
http://project.mvps.org/faqs.htm

Mike Glen
Project MVP

After I posted my last post I thought a lot about why this tracking
is so important to our project, and as you said it does not make
much sense "that the purchase of 1 beam requiring 1 hour of time, 2
man-hours of work, and costing $5 has the same weight in terms of
total project progress as does the purchase of another beam
requiring 6
weeks of time, 1000 man-hours of work, and the expenditure of
$5000". I realized that this is the key to my difficulties with
Project. Because the fact is that for our company these two beams
do have the same weight towards EV because we get "paid" the same
for each beam regardless of the cost that we put in. Furthermore,
we only get "paid" for it when it is 100% complete. As long as we
don't have a beam we have "earned" nothing, we have only spent. It
is not that we are trying to change the laws of mathematics. But
Project is looking at the projects' progress from the point of
scheduling, budgeting and resource allocation, and from that point
you are right it makes absolutely no sense that these two beams
should have the same weight. However this has nothing to do with
"earnings" because in the real world you don't always "earn"
according to what you spend. So when I am looking to track EV I am
looking for what I really "earned" and not what Project is telling
me I earned.



:

Project, and critical path methodology, recognizes the passage of
time compared to the total time that is required, the expenditure
of money compared to the total project budget, and the performance
of man-hours of work compared to the total man-hours required as
valid metrics of project progress. Your method as you've
described it isn't looking at any of those. You might be able to
get the subjective "percent physical complete" field to
approximate your requirements but I'm not sure you can get it to
roll-up precisely the way you want it to. I'm afraid you're going
to have to go with old-fashioned paper and pencil to do what you
want. No disrespect intended but your insistance on redefining
the meaning of "project progress" and the calculation of EV so
that the purchase of 1 beam requiring 1 hour of time, 2 man-hours
of work, and costing $5 has the same weight in terms of total
project progress as does the purchase of another beam requiring 6
weeks of time, 1000 man-hours of work, and the expenditure of
$5000 is rather like saying "I know what the laws of mathematics
say it should be, but we need Excel to report that 2+2 is 5.7956
when we generate our balance sheets." IMHO it's no more a merely
academic debate on a matter of management preference or PM style
than is the correct answer to 2+2. --
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://project.mvps.org/faqs.htm for the FAQs



Sorry to bring up this old thread, but I was away for a month.

Thank you all for all the replies and help that you gave me.
However I still cannot get this to work. Here is an example that
I think will accurately explain what I am trying to accomplish.

For example, if my project is to purchase 100 identical steel
beams. I create a subtask for each beam. Now each of these "buy
1 beam" tasks will have subtasks under it with wide variations in
work, time etc. Some beams will take only 2 hrs to purchase and
some will take weeks with many resources.

I would like to track at any point how many beams have been
purchased. That
means, that the only time that the "buy 1 beam" task will "earn
its value" is
when all the subtasks under it will be 100% complete. There is no
EV for something that is 50% or 75% complete since as long as the
beam was not purchased we would not want to include that task in
our project's EV. We can
keep track how much percent is still missing to complete that "buy
1 beam" task within its subtasks, but they should not count
towards the projects EV.

Additionally, I would like that each of the 100 "buy one beam"
tasks should
be calculated as 1% of the project regardless of the subtasks
under it. This
way I can know at any given moment how many beams have been
purchased and how
many are still needed.

I understand the academic debate above if this is good PM
practice, however,
this is the way we want to track our project. Is there a way in
MS Project
to do this?

All help is greatly appreciated.

:

I am trying to assign percentage weights for subtasks towards the
summary task. For example, if I have 4 subtasks to a summary
task, I would like that
each one should count as 25% of the summary task, regardless of
each tasks
duration or resource usage.

I would also like to do this to summary tasks to a higher level
summary task, if possible.

All help is appreciated.


----------------
This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, and Microsoft responds
to the suggestions with the most votes. To vote for this
suggestion, click the "I
Agree" button in the message pane. If you do not see the button,
follow this
link to open the suggestion in the Microsoft Web-based Newsreader
and then
click "I Agree" in the message pane.

http://www.microsoft.com/office/com...aabb-9e2880b70268&dg=microsoft.public.project