Task Contours

[genglehardt]

MS 2007 lists about ten contours (flat, back loaded, bell, etc.). I would
like to take advantage of this feature but cannot find definitions
(mathematical definitions would be best) of the contours to know how each
contour would effect the manhour distribution. Bell is easy to guess, but
how much does "early peak" effect the distribution, for example? Does anyone
know where I can access this information?

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

gentlehardt --

To the best of my knowledge, Microsoft has never released the algorithm for
the default Work Contours. An excellent way to determine how they work is
to create a project with ten tasks, each of which has a Duration of 10 days.
Assign a resource to each task at 100% Units. Then apply a Work Contour to
each of the ten tasks. You will quickly see that each Work Contour
increases the Duration between 50% and 100%. Beyond using the default Work
Contours, you can also use the Contoured pattern, which means that you
manually type the Work in the timephased grid the way you want the resource
to do the job. Hope this helps.