"S" Curves in MS Projects

[Catfish Hunter]

In Primavera you can assign "S" curves to resources. You can also create your
own if the standard ones don't apply. How can I do this in Projects 2002 or
2003? The method used by projects does not work for what I need.

 

[Mike Glen]

Hi Catfish,

Welcome to this Microsoft Project newsgroup

Project was not designed to produce S-curves as they are fully plottable in
Excel. You need to export the data to Excel and work from there.

FAQs, companion products and other useful Project information can be seen at
this web address: http://project.mvps.org/faqs.htm

Hope this helps - please let us know how you get on

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

 

[Rob Schneider]

In Primavera you can assign "S" curves to resources. You can also create your
own if the standard ones don't apply. How can I do this in Projects 2002 or
2003? The method used by projects does not work for what I need.

Is the answer then to use Primavera?

 

[Catfish Hunter]

Exporting to Excel is not an option. It needs to be done in Projects. There
must be a way to assign a curve. Someone must have done this.

 

[JulieS]

Hi Catfish Hunter,

Are you referring to work contours -- being able to contour a resource's
allocation (assignment %) to tasks over time? If so, the answer is yes.
Double click on the assignment (represented by the Task Name) in the
Resource Usage view to show the Assignment Information dialog box, and
select a Work contour (Flat, Bell, Front Loaded, etc.) from the
drop-down.

You may also see the Assignment Information dialog box by double
clicking on a Resource's name in the Task Usage view.

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

Julie

Visit http://project.mvps.org/ for FAQs and more information about
Microsoft Project.

 

[Catfish Hunter]

Perfect, A+ for JulieS.
Thanks

Hi Catfish Hunter,

Are you referring to work contours -- being able to contour a resource's
allocation (assignment %) to tasks over time? If so, the answer is yes.
Double click on the assignment (represented by the Task Name) in the
Resource Usage view to show the Assignment Information dialog box, and
select a Work contour (Flat, Bell, Front Loaded, etc.) from the
drop-down.

You may also see the Assignment Information dialog box by double
clicking on a Resource's name in the Task Usage view.

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

Julie

Visit http://project.mvps.org/ for FAQs and more information about
Microsoft Project.

 

[JulieS]

Hi Catfish,

You're welcome and thanks for the feedback.

Julie

Visit http://project.mvps.org/ for FAQs and more information about
Microsoft Project.

 

[Mike Glen]

Interesting: I've never heard of a work contour being called an S-Curve.
The only ones I've come across are those that indicate the progress of a
project, usually against cost, usually as part of Earned Value Analysis.
The work contours are hardly an S shape:! Anyway, well done Julie for
guessing correctly!


Mike Glen
Project MVP

 

[davegb]

Interesting: I've never heard of a work contour being called an S-Curve.
The only ones I've come across are those that indicate the progress of a
project, usually against cost, usually as part of Earned Value Analysis.
The work contours are hardly an S shape:! Anyway, well done Julie for
guessing correctly!


Mike Glen
Project MVP

You're right, Mike, he has his terms confused. A work contour is most
definitely not an S-curve. The 2 look nothing alike.

 

[JulieS]

Hi Mike,

I agree. It was only after Catfish said "assigning curves to resources"
that I figured he may have been talking about work contours. Lucky
guess on my part more than anything else.

Julie

 

[Catfish Hunter]

It seems to me that everyone who responded is mainly a MS Projects user and
only know what descriptions are used in this program. I have been a scheduler
for 26 years with Halliburton. Most of that time I used Primavera. Only
recently have I started useing MSP. They are as different as night and day.
I still wish to thank you Juile.

 

[Mike Glen]

Hi Catfish,

Maybe it is Primavera that's the odd one out In the 20 years that I've
been a university lecturer and trainer in Project Management, S-curves have
been traditionally a measure of trend and used for trend setting, and have
indeed nothing to do specifically with project management. Project managers
have used S-curves to analyse the way the project is going and what the
trend it and how that is likely to affect the outcome. Googling for
S-Curves gives many refernces as such, eg at random:
http://www.maxwideman.com/papers/resource/s-curves.htm


Mike Glen
Project MVP

 

[Catfish Hunter]

"S" curves have been used through out the industry for progress curves
(useing the earned man-hour method), man-power forecasting and trending of
all kinds. In the real world I could modify the "S" curves without having to
export to Excel first.
I don't,think you have any pratical experience on a real construction site
($350,000,000). Your methods are best used to erect a Burger King or Waffel
House. Maybe you can use your "work contour" on those.
I still can't understand why you nosed in in the first place. Have a good
day Mike.
PRIMAVERA - HOW THE WORLD SCHEDULES!!!!!

 

[davegb]

It seems to me that everyone who responded is mainly a MS Projects user and
only know what descriptions are used in this program. I have been a scheduler
for 26 years with Halliburton. Most of that time I used Primavera. Only
recently have I started useing MSP. They are as different as night and day.
I still wish to thank you Juile.

Interesting you should say that now, Catfish. In a previous post, you
said, "Primavera is nothing more than buttons in a differant place.",
comparing it to Project. At the time, I queried you on this, saying
that Primavera must have removed about 75% of the features if it was
just Project with the buttons in a different place. You never replied.
Now it's "they are as different as night and day". So which is it?

Your issue here is that you used the wrong terminology and misled
others. No matter which scheduling software you use, an S curve is an S
curve, and a Resource Contour is a Resource Contour. Are you telling us
that in P3 a Resource Contour is called an S curve?

As to whether P3 is "better" than Project, there's no question that
it's more robust and has numerous features Project doesn't have (I
guess I answered the first question I asked you above). And it was
designed by people who understand scheduling far better than anyone at
MS. (And being MS people, they ignored the high-priced consultants they
hired to show them how to schedule). Nonetheless, I wouldn't want a
D-10 Cat to make a sandbox, or P3 to schedule building a compressor
station. With it's many flaws, Project has the best user interface I've
seen in scheduling software. That part MS developers do know! And it
doesn't take months to get started in. So they both have their place in
the market.

If you don't like Project, go back to P3! That is, if you, or your
current employer, can afford the $4500 per seat! (Or has it gone up
since I last checked it?)

 

[Catfish Hunter]

All the time I thought this web site was for posting questions and getting
answers. This post started out this way then it became a contest. That's a
real shame.

 

[davegb]

All the time I thought this web site was for posting questions and getting
answers. This post started out this way then it became a contest. That's a
real shame.

It sure is, Crawfish!

 

[Steve House]

S-curves HAVE indeed been used as part of earned value methodology for
years, but the work contour curves used to fine-tune resource assignments
and the S-curves used to visualize progress in earned value are two entirely
different things.

 

[Steve House]

And by the way, S-curves are REPORTS, not ASSIGNMENTS - they illustrate data
that exists, and do not create data points in and of themselves. So the
notion of assigning an S-curve to a resource is nonsensical on its face.
You might graph an s-curve of a particular resource's cumulative work or
cost over time but that's something else entirely from assigning an s-curve
to the resource.