Somebody please explain actual work to me....

[ProjectNewbie]

OK, so I have more information for a better formulated question....

Create a task in MS Project.
Duration = 3 Days
Work = 10 Hours

Now, let's enter some actual time to this task... how about 8 hours.
And now, let's change the duration from 3 days to 1 day.
Actual work changes?

And if I increase duration, actual work now moves with work and can actually
exceed the original 8 hours that was posted there.

Soooo, my questions is... if there is a calculation for actual work, what is
the formula and ultimately how do I make the above stop happening. I realize
this isn't a big deal for small tasks that span over a week or two, but
imagine this happening to tasks that span over months. A slight downward
change in duration could throw the whole plan off. Can anybody help me?

 

[Joe]

I am not sure I fully understand your questions, but I think you are confused
with “actual work†and “workâ€. I also think you are confused how “fixed
durationâ€, “fixed workâ€, and “fixed units†affect a task. Actual work, once
recorded, never changes, it is work that has already been done. Even with
“actual work†recorded, if you go and change the duration of a task, and the
task is “fixed durationâ€, it will change the number of "work" hours left, but
not the "actual work" already recorded. If you change the duration, and leave
the task as “fixed work", the total work should not change but the amount of
work performed each day will change. Does this make sense to you?

 

[ProjectNewbie]

Yes, I understand.
Run the test I outlined in my first message though, you will see that
"Actual Work" does indeed change. I have been digging up some information
from Microsoft on why this happens, but haven't received a clear-cut answer
yet. Open up Project, and give it a try.

Set Duration to equal 3 Days
Set Work to equal 10 Hours

OK, our task has been entered......

Now, enter some actual time to this task. Enter 9 hours for Actual Work.
And now, change the duration from 3 days to 1 day.
You'll see that "Actual Work" does indeed change. And not only that, you'll
see that now that MS Project has tagged this task as 100% complete, actual
work will now move in line with Work, so as you increase the duration back to
3 days - Work and Actual Work will uniformly increase.

I've been using fixed duration for my project, however I have tried this
with fixed work as well. I agree completely with you, actual work should
remain unchanged, but that's not the case.

Make sense?

 

[Joe]

Now I understand what you are say. I had a similar thing happen to me. Is
this task a dependency to a task that is already marked 100% complete? Check
that out.

 

[John]

Newbie,
Take a look at the thread of responses to a similar post in this
newsgroup dated Nov 29 by John@NRC. In particular, Mike Glen's response
explains how Work, Duration and Units interact and also gives a
reference to a series of articles that could help explain Project's
process.

John

 

[Mike Glen]

Hi ProjectNewbie,

Welcome to this Microsoft Project newsgroup

I can't explain why Project does what it does, but you are assuming a lot!
Firstly, work is done by resources and thus to enter manhours of work
without the man does not make any sense. Equally, entering actual work
without a worker doesn't make sense. Finally, as you have an 8-hour day,
trying to force Project to squeeze 9 hours into 8 hours makes even less
sense. I doubt whether the developers even considered anyone entering such
fallicies No, please use Project in the way it was designed and then
post your problems. If you don't know how to enter the details, I strongly
suggest you attend a 2 or 3 day course to get an good inroduction to how it
works. At least have a look at my series on Microsoft Project in the
TechTrax ezine at this site: http://tinyurl.com/2xbhc or this:
http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/Pub0009/LPMFrame.asp?CMD=ArticleSearch&AUTH=23
(Perhaps you'd care to rate the articles before leaving the site,
Thanks.)

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

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

Mike Glen
MS Project MVP



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

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

Mike Glen
MS Project MVP