How do I track % planned and % complete in project

[kmercer]

I have created a Project Plan and base lined it.
I update the project plan on a weekly basis - but only update the % complete
value.

How would I obtain the following information from the plan:

a) % Planned at a certain point in time. eg the % of work that was planned
to be completed by 12th January

b) % complete at a certain point in time, eg the % of work that was actually
completed by 12th January.

Thank you.

 

[JulieS]

Hi kmercer,

Have a look at Earned Value information.
From help:
=============================================
The budgeted cost of individual tasks as they are scheduled in the project
plan, based on the costs of resources assigned to those tasks plus any fixed
costs associated with the tasks. This is the budgeted cost of work scheduled
(BCWS). BCWS is the baseline cost up to the status date you choose. Budgeted
cost values are stored in the baseline fields, or, if you've saved multiple
baselines, in Baseline1 through Baseline10 fields.



The actual cost required to complete all or some portion of the tasks, up to
the status date. This is the actual cost of work performed (ACWP). Normally,
Microsoft Office Project 2003 correlates actual costs with actual work.

=================================================

I hope this helps. Let us know how you get along.

Julie

 

[Steve House [Project MVP]]

FYI -- % Complete is not the percent of the work that has been completed. %
Complete refers to duration and represents the duration that has elapsed
versus the total duration required. The % of work competed is a different
measurement, "% Work Complete." They may be the same number but then again,
they might not. When entering and evaluating progress you must be very
clear what you're entering and what the different numbers mean in order to
get an accurate picture of what's happening with your project.

 

[kmercer]

Thanks for your replies.

I think I am getting somewhere but am still having problems (i'm a basic
user!).

I have created tasks, assigned resources, resource value = $1, then
baselined the plan.

I am using the % work complete to track progress.
I am also using earned value to be able to track % planned (BCWS/BAC) and %
complete ACWP/BAC). This all seems to work fine, unless you complete a task
that is in the future. For example, if task 1 - a 24 hour task is due to be
completed on 1st Jan to 3rd Jan - but is completed 100% by 1st January - if I
update the % work complete with 100% then ACWP would only calculate 8 hours
(i.e, a third of the work), however once the 3rd of Jan passes, ACWP is shown
as 24 (full work).

Is there anyway to get around this - as this method seems to serve my purpose.

Thanks, Kathleen

 

[John M.]

The earned value fields are calculated thru the status date. Based on the
approach you are using, just setting the status date to be the project end
date would give you the correct calculations.

Alternately, you could leverage some calculation options to move completed
parts back to the status date. This requires that you set the status date
prior to entering your % complete update.
- Tools --> Options --> Calculation Options tab --> Move end of completed
parts... option (you can click the help button on the window to get a
description of the options and behaviors.

This is probably splitting hairs in your case, since you are not capturing
actual hours, but I would use the BCWP instead of the ACWP as the numerator
in your % complete calculation. You're getting the result you want using
ACWP, but it is like comparing apples to oranges when you divide your actual
cost by your baseline budget at complete.

John M.

 

[Steve House [Project MVP]]

Think about it a bit - it is physically impossible to complete work for the
future as scheduled unless you have a time machine. If I have a 5 day task
that is scheduled for the second week of February and it is complete as of
yesterday, 20 Jan, I did not do the work as scheduled. I rescheduled it to
start 15 Jan and then did the work. (Whether the written plan reflects the
schedule change or not, that is what in fact happened.) When you post
actual progress in your plan, use the "update tasks" tools only if the work
took place on the dates the schedule called for it to take place (and took
exactly as long to complete as the schedule estimated it would). If it
happened earlier or later than those scheduled dates, use the Tracking table
to enter Actual Start and Actual Finish (Use those fields - DO NOT update
the plain Start and Finish fields in the Gantt Chart by hand!) so that they
conform to what has actually taken place. As Mike said in another post -
the project file should ALWAYS reflect phyiscal realities.

By the way, % Complete is not ACWP/BAC, it is BCWP/BAC. The only time it
would be ACWP is if every task required exactly the number of man-hours to
complete that you had estimated it would and that is rarely true. Look at
one task, scheduled for 40 hours using a cost of $1 per hour as you are.
BAC = 40. We finish the task as scheduled. ACWP=40, BCWP=40 and
ACWP/BAC=BCWP/BAC=100% But let's say we mis-estimated and we finished the
task in only three days. ACWP=24, BCWP=40 because our budget called for 40
hours of work and we've done all the work, ACWP/BAC shows the task is 75%
done, not correct since we have actually created all of what the task was
required to create. BCWP/BAC = 100% done which is the acturate indicator.

BCWP/BAC shows schedule performance
ACWP/BAC shows budget performance

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

 

[Hisham]

Hi,
This is one of the topics that I have raised before to Microsoft as a
suggestion for enhancement on MS Project. Also I have discussed this matter
in more details at my blog with a sample project file that includes some
custom fields with the formulas needed to calculate the (Planned % Complete)
to be included in the project Gantt.

This is not only about the date formulas as it was stated in some replies
because there is a bit more complexity when it comes to the summary tasks,
which should be treated in a different way than the detailed tasks.

Please visit my blog and request your copy of the project sample file at:
http://epmforum.wordpress.com/2008/05/28/planned-pct-complete

Regards,
Hisham