When adding a new task, duration or work?

[George Furnell]

Good day, and thanks for taking the time to read.

I am planning a new project and since I am paying by the hour, I need to
know how many hours it will take to do the work. I.e my budget will be hours
* rate.

Unfortunately I am confused and do not know the difference between the
duration and the work column.

Can you please explain?

Kind regards
George

 

[Syed Ali Abid]

Regarding difference between work and duration: Duration is actual time (in
hrs or day) to complete a task, e.g. for a task 2 resources are allocated
and duration is 0.5 days.
Work would be actual man days/hours for that task. in the above example Work
would be 1 day i.e. (duration * no. of resources).

Hope it helps.

 

[Piotr Zygadlo]

Hi,

To be more detailed duration is a difference between start and finish date.
It depends on you how many hours of work should be done in this time. So one
could work an hour a day on the task throught two weeks and then work may be
10h (or it could be 14 depend on yours calendars).

Its important if you want to (or have to) change start and finish date
during your project execution. If you change finish date (and start date
remains the same) your duration will change. But when changing finish date
project could ask you (green, triangle mark) if you want to change work
amount.

We use the same calculation, so I thought, that this may be helpfull to you.

 

[Mike Glen]

Hi George,

Welcome to this Microsoft Project newsgroup

The Duration field is the total span of active working time for a task. This
is generally the amount of working time from the start to the finish of a
task. Work is the time a resource spends towards the achievement of the
task, usually measured in man-hours. If a resource is assigned at 100%
using default calendars, then the Duration will be the same as the Work.
But it is not necessarily the same if, for example, you assign a resource at
50%, then the Work will be 40 man-hours for the 80-hour Duration as he is
only working half the time of the Duration, or only 4 hours per day.

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

 

[George Furnell]

Thanks Mike & Syed for answering,

When I add a new task, should I provide both the duration and work? I only
know how many hours it will take to complete a task.

Kind regards

George

 

[Dave]

Thanks Mike & Syed for answering,

When I add a new task, should I provide both the duration and work? I only
know how many hours it will take to complete a task.

Kind regards

George

Yes you should add both. You enter the work as that is the amount of
work that will be carried out. This gives you your cost.

You then need to work out over what period that work will be carried
out. In other words will somebody be working on it full time or will
they only work on it for half their time. That is the essence of the plan.

Hope this helps.

Dave

 

[Mike Glen]

You're welcome, George

You don't need to add Duration if the Resource is assigned at 100% and he
will be working on it full time using the standard calendar. In which case
Work=Duration and Project will calculate the Duration for you. Any
difference from that is governed by the formula Work= Duration * Units
assigned, in which case you have to enter 2 of the 3 elements of the
equation.

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

 

[Steve House]

It depends on the source of your data. When you say you know how many hours
it will take, just exactly where is that data coming from, ie, just what
sort of "hours" are you talking about? Usually duration is the more
readily available information - "last year when we upgraded the software for
10 workstations it took us 10 days so this year when we have to upgrade 25
workstations it'll probably take 25 days." But in your situation and with
your particular tasks you might find man-hours to be more easily estimated.