Task completes before due date

[KT]

Hi Everyone,

Let’s consider this scenario: "A task is scheduled for five working days.
But surprisingly it gets completed in three and half working days. The
project manager wants to give credits for that, in the project meeting". I
understood that the earned value analysis gives an idea of the deviation
present between the actual and estimated work. In this case there is no
deviation from the estimated. Will the earned value method indicate that this
task got completed before due? Or is there any other way I can present in the
report (graph or any document) and give credits to this activity? Please
suggest. Thanks in advance.

KT

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

KT --

Before doing anything, you should make sure that you save a baseline for
every one of your projects before you begin entering actuals. Saving a
baseline for your projects will capture one critical piece of information:
the original Baseline Duration for each task before work began on the
project. Assuming you are already saving a baseline in your projects,
here's what you could do:

1. Create a custom task Table called _KT Duration Variance. In this custom
Table, add the following fields:

ID
Indicators
Task Name
Resource Names
Duration Variance
Duration
Baseline Duration
% Complete

2. Create a new Filter called _KT Early Completion. Select the "Show
related summary rows" option and then set the Filter criteria as follows:

% Complete = 100%
AND
Duration Variance is < 0 days

3. Create a new task View called _KT Early Completion. Set the following
options in the View Definition dialog:

Screen = Task Sheet
Table = _KT Duration Variance
Group = No Group
Filter = _KT Early Completion
Highlight filter = Selected
Show in menu = Selected

4. After you create the new Table, Filter, and View, copy each of them to
your Global.mpt file using Tools - Organizer.

5. At each team meeting, open a relevant project and apply the new _KT
Early Completion view. On the screen, you will see every task whose
Duration finished in less time than the original Baseline Duration, and
these tasks will be highlighted in blue to distinguish them from all other
tasks. Because you included the Resource Names column in the new Table, you
can immediately see WHO finished early, and reward them in front of their
peers!

Hope this helps.

 

[John]

Hi Everyone,

Let’s consider this scenario: "A task is scheduled for five working days.
But surprisingly it gets completed in three and half working days. The
project manager wants to give credits for that, in the project meeting". I
understood that the earned value analysis gives an idea of the deviation
present between the actual and estimated work. In this case there is no
deviation from the estimated. Will the earned value method indicate that this
task got completed before due? Or is there any other way I can present in the
report (graph or any document) and give credits to this activity? Please
suggest. Thanks in advance.

KT

KT,
If you are using earned value analysis the "atta boy" will show up in
the metrics. If the task was completed early (i.e. ahead of Baseline),
BCWP will be greater than BCWS giving an SPI value of greater than 1.
This only has meaning however if you look at the earned value metrics
for that particular task and the status date is somewhere in the middle
of the 5 day span, otherwise the earned value metrics could get "washed
out" by other not so stellar tasks. Likewise if it also turns out that
less money was spent, ACWP will be less than BCWS and CPI will be
greater than 1.

I differ with you assertion that there is no deviation from the estimate
as long as the original plan was baselined. That's the whole point of
baselining.

Hope this helps.
John
Project MVP

 

[Pratta]

Hi KT
Dales sugegstion is excellent. I am going to try that. I was just going to
add that to ensure you show all tasks when you baseline to ensure baseline
and EV data is recorded at the task level, and that cost data is recorded
against each resource.
Also, when rebaselining, tick to rollup to summary boxes.
Of course, you must also key time accurately at the task level and use a
timesheet tool or the Task Usage view to record time.

Regards............Pratta

 

[KT]

Hi John, Dale and Pratta

Thanks!! I really appreciate your suggestions. I am actually learning this
Microsoft Project gradually by feeding in some project information and
experimenting it. The process that we follow in our projects is dependent on
several factors and so the tasks. Hence we don't know the start and finish
time for some tasks until the project is like 20 percent complete. Let me
explain a little bit in detail. Say the development process of the project
has five phases. We won't know the start and finish dates for the Phases Two
through Five until we complete Phase One. So our agreement with the client
would be that the project completion time will differ according to the
completion of each phase. With this background, and reading about the
baselines, I understood that before saving a baseline I should have the
initial schedule of the whole project. In this case I don't have one upfront.
So I am concerned of the steps I should follow to achieve setting up the
baselines and tracking the progress of the project. Can somebody please help
me with this? Thanks in advance.

Also I have another question which is not related to the baseline. When I
enter a task in the Gantt chart view, Project automatically estimates the
task duration as one day. But, the start date and end date are different in
this case. If the duration is one day, then the start and finish date should
be the same. Anybody know why this happens? Thanks

KT

 

[John]

Hi John, Dale and Pratta

Thanks!! I really appreciate your suggestions. I am actually learning this
Microsoft Project gradually by feeding in some project information and
experimenting it. The process that we follow in our projects is dependent on
several factors and so the tasks. Hence we don't know the start and finish
time for some tasks until the project is like 20 percent complete. Let me
explain a little bit in detail. Say the development process of the project
has five phases. We won't know the start and finish dates for the Phases Two
through Five until we complete Phase One. So our agreement with the client
would be that the project completion time will differ according to the
completion of each phase. With this background, and reading about the
baselines, I understood that before saving a baseline I should have the
initial schedule of the whole project. In this case I don't have one upfront.
So I am concerned of the steps I should follow to achieve setting up the
baselines and tracking the progress of the project. Can somebody please help
me with this? Thanks in advance.

Also I have another question which is not related to the baseline. When I
enter a task in the Gantt chart view, Project automatically estimates the
task duration as one day. But, the start date and end date are different in
this case. If the duration is one day, then the start and finish date should
be the same. Anybody know why this happens? Thanks

KT

KT,
Hopefully the other guys will check in with their suggestions also but
here is my two cents.

The fact that you can't nail down the start and finish for future phases
is nothing unusual. In fact, it is the norm. If we could nail down
anything in the future we would be sought after by people far and wide.
So, what do you do? Estimate as best you can based on a number of
factors. Use historical data for one. Compare this project to previous
similar projects to gage task durations. If you don't have historical
data, talk to the people who will be doing the work. They probably have
the best feel for how long tasks their tasks will take. However,
sometimes you just have to use an educated guess. The bottom line is
that you have to have a starting plan. Will it be wrong? Definitely.
Nobody, even the best Project Managers, get it right on the first cut.
The world is dynamic. Things are gonna change no matter how well you
plan. No matter, set the initial baseline. When you get a better handle
on future tasks, set another baseline (the latest version of Project has
provisions for multiple baselines) or just re-baseline the future tasks
with mutual agreement with the customer. Everything should be negotiated
- budget, baseline, performance measures, etc. That's just good
management and good customer relations.

With regard to estimated durations. Seeing a different date for the
start and finish of a one day task can be caused by a couple of things.
First, go to Tools/Options/Calendar tab. Look at the setting for "Hours
per day". The default is 8 hours but if it has been increased, say to 9
hours per day, the finish of a one day duration task will be on the next
day. If the "Hours per day" is at the default, go to Tools/Change
Working TIme. For any workday, the default "From" and "To" should be
8:00 am to 12:00 pm and 1:00 pm to 5:00 pm. If the working hours has
been changed such that the total hours in a day is less than 8 (based on
the default setting in Tools/Options), the finish date of a one day
duration task will be on the next day.

Wow, a lot of stuff to try and get a handle on huh? But, that's why we
are here. Hope this helps.

John
Project MVP

 

[KT]

KT,
Hopefully the other guys will check in with their suggestions also but
here is my two cents.

The fact that you can't nail down the start and finish for future phases
is nothing unusual. In fact, it is the norm. If we could nail down
anything in the future we would be sought after by people far and wide.
So, what do you do? Estimate as best you can based on a number of
factors. Use historical data for one. Compare this project to previous
similar projects to gage task durations. If you don't have historical
data, talk to the people who will be doing the work. They probably have
the best feel for how long tasks their tasks will take. However,
sometimes you just have to use an educated guess. The bottom line is
that you have to have a starting plan. Will it be wrong? Definitely.
Nobody, even the best Project Managers, get it right on the first cut.
The world is dynamic. Things are gonna change no matter how well you
plan. No matter, set the initial baseline. When you get a better handle
on future tasks, set another baseline (the latest version of Project has
provisions for multiple baselines) or just re-baseline the future tasks
with mutual agreement with the customer. Everything should be negotiated
- budget, baseline, performance measures, etc. That's just good
management and good customer relations.

With regard to estimated durations. Seeing a different date for the
start and finish of a one day task can be caused by a couple of things.
First, go to Tools/Options/Calendar tab. Look at the setting for "Hours
per day". The default is 8 hours but if it has been increased, say to 9
hours per day, the finish of a one day duration task will be on the next
day. If the "Hours per day" is at the default, go to Tools/Change
Working TIme. For any workday, the default "From" and "To" should be
8:00 am to 12:00 pm and 1:00 pm to 5:00 pm. If the working hours has
been changed such that the total hours in a day is less than 8 (based on
the default setting in Tools/Options), the finish date of a one day
duration task will be on the next day.

Wow, a lot of stuff to try and get a handle on huh? But, that's why we
are here. Hope this helps.

John
Project MVP

Thank You John for your two cents ,

Let me begin my discussion with some more additional information. We support
university faculty in creating their courses online. In your reply you had
mentioned to use some estimates like historic data or expert opinion.
Unfortunately, in our projects both the historic data and experts opinion is
of no use. The reason is that, the second phase begins with an activity
"Receive content from the faculty". This date depends upon the faculty. And
we never know when the faculty will turn in the contents to us (that depends
upon their research and availability of time). Hence, according to your
suggestion, I will create an initial baseline with the best estimate of known
information. Then when I get to know the second set of schedule times, I will
be creating a new set of baseline and so on. (Will this method work? suggest
me). Now at the end of the project I will be having several baselines and my
question is how to view all the baselines and the actual work compared to the
corresponding baseline.

I understood that when you save multiple baselines, say baseline one and
two, baseline two will be having the information of baseline one additional
to the snapshot of the changed schedule. Is that correct?
Please explain me how this works. It’s confusing; I will be thankful to you.

KT

 

[Steve House [MVP]]

How can you say there is no deviation from the estimated? You planned to
complete the task in 5 days (40 hours) but you completed it in 3.5 days (28
hours). 40-28 = 12 hours variance from estimate.

 

[Haris Rashid]

hi KT,

Yes the Schedule Variance (SV) and Schedule Performance Index (SPI) will
indicate that you are ahead of shedule. In MS Project use the Earned Value
table. It is accessible through VIEWS > TABLES > MORE TABLES > EARNED VALUE
SCHEDULE INDICATORS.

Fields in this table include the following and will give you the required
information:
Schedule Variance: SV = BCWP - BCWS; the value of what you have
accomplished to date, versus what you planned to have accomplished to date.

Schedule Performance Index (SPI) – The planned schedule efficiency factor
representing the relationship between the earned value and the initial
planned schedule. SPI = BCWP/BCWS. A SPI ≥ 1 is good. SPI < 1 suggests
actual work is falling behind the planned schedule.

Also i will suggest that you mentioned that in this scenario "is no
deviation from the estimated". In fact there is a deviation and it must be
recorded as a deviation. However this deviation has a healthy impact on the
project schedule. There can be positive and negative deviations as the
project proceeds.

Kind regards,

Haris

 

[Dean]

KT,
The MVPs missed that you are now learning MS Project.

In addition to the start, finish and multiple baseline fields, Project has
10 start and finish fields. Each of these fields can be used when you define
Gantt bars. I suggest redefining your normal Gantt bars so that you are using
half height bars on the top. Copy (cut and paste twice) your normal bars and
change one of them to be half height on the bottom. In your new Gantt bar,
change "From" to Baseline1 Start and change "To" to Baseline1 Finish. You
should retain your original baselines, but when you later refine, use Tools,
Tracking, Save Baseline, Save Interim Plan and use the default Copy-Into.

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi All,

Interim Plans do not work with Baseline1Start but with Start1.
HTH

 

[Dean]

Oops, the default copy into is Start1/Finish1. Just make the Gantt bar
definition match where you store interim dates.

 

[Dean]

Jan,
Can you be more clear? What do you mean by "Interim Plans do not work"?

When you select Tools Tracking Save Baseline Save Interim Plan then select
the down arrow at the end of "into", a choice of Baseline1-10 and
Start1/Finish1 to Start10/Finish10 is displayed. If you select Baseline1,
Start is copied to Baseline1 Start, Duration is copied to Baseline1 Duration
and Finish is copied to Baseline1 Finish. Cost and Work are also copied. Is
there something else that interim plans are supposed to do that I am missing?

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

And sorry from me, my memory got stuck in an earlier version where interim
plans always went into Startn-Finishn
Sorry.

 

[Steve House [Project MVP]]

There's an imprtant anomoly in KT's message. He poses the idea that a task
was scheduled for 5 working days and is completed in 3.5. But then he goes
on to say that there is no difference in the estimated and actual work. How
could that be? Assuming the standard calendar and the normal 100% resource
assignment, 5 days is 40 man-hours of work. 3.5 days is 28 man-hours of
work.