Work vs Actual work

[marc.gordon]

Hello,

I'm having a discussion with my Manager about work vs actual work.
We use project server to update our projects each week. If a person
has 20 hours assigned to a task and only spends 10 hours, my manager
thinks we should adjust the 'work' to 10 hours to match the 'actual
work'. I don't agree with her but I'm having trouble finding
documenation (or a strong enough argument) to prove my point.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks,

Marc

 

[Chris Marriott]

Marc

If you schedule 20 hours of work for a task

The task only takes 10

You go to the tracking table View > Tables > tacking

You add actual work of 10 hours and update the remaining work to 0 (you may
have to add the remaining work column) project will kindly update the
schedule to 10 hours for you

If however, you add progress as 100% complete - project will assume 20 hours
of work took place and copy the 20 scheduled hours into the actual work column

The issue is really about comparing actual work to scheduled work.. for this
you need to baseline ... .tools > tracking > baselines

The "baseline work" field will show you the originally scheduled work value
....
--
Regards


Chris Marriott - PMP MCSE MCDBA
UK - EPM Consultant & Trainer

 

[Catfish Hunter]

What's in the schedule is always estimated man hours. Once you get actual man
hours from a time sheet or.... you can find your productivity by deviding the
actual into the estimated (earned). The estimated becomes earned as work is
completed.
To get incremental progress on a task you can update the "% Complete". Then
go to View > Resoure Useage. This will give you a summary % complete by
resourcs.

To take it a step further you can produce projected and actual progress
curves if your task are resource loaded..

 

[Marc]

Hi Chris,

Thanks for getting back to me so soon. I appologise as I was not clear
about the scenrio.

Lets say a task is going to take 10 days in duration and 80 hours of
effort. (8 hours per day). At the end of day 5, the time is submitted
into the Central project office as 20 hours for the week (or 4 hours
per day)

 

[Marc]

<got cut off before finishing> Sorry...

If the resource only worked 20 hours but still has 60 remaining for
next week, should we still change the resource's 'Work' to match the
'actual work'.

Am I clear?

Thanks,

Marc

 

[Chris Marriott]

Marc

If you are recording the time in actual hours and not % complete then the
following will help

When you have entered the actual work that the resource has entered ...
there is often a discrepencey between what you scheduled and what has
actually been done

You have a status date which you use to tell project when you have entered
progress upto

Go to Project > Project Information and set the status date up to the point
that your resource has provided actual work upto

When you have set this date go to tools > tracking > update project

This will take all work that has not been performed before the status date
and move it to the next period

It wil also take work that has been performed (that was not due to be
performed until after the status date and move it to the left of the status
date

This in effect adjusts the scheduled work - this is a godd practice and a
lot easier than making manual adjustments

If this has missed the mark again ... let me know and we can have another
try
--
Regards


Chris Marriott - PMP MCSE MCDBA
UK - EPM Consultant & Trainer

 

[Marc]

Thanks Catfish,

If I understand you correctly, the 'actual hours' placed into the
project can be used in earned value. That being said, does it make
scense to change the 'work' for last week to match the 'actual work'
completed last week? From what I understand, it is 'no'. I just seem
to have difficulty in bringing this argument forward.

 

[John Sitka]

As mud.

The "Work" value is an estimate, a planning placeholder. Once the project begins all you have to worry about is actual work and
remaining work
on a task. If you need to look backwards and find out where the plan was incorrect then take a baseline. Or rather than load the
system with baseline data
just use a custom number field with your original "Work Estimate" which will remain non calculated.

It goes like this task A is planned as having 30 hours WORK
once task A begins it has a certain amount of ACTUAL WORK added to it in a tracking operation
If the ACTUAL work is recorded (the first and most logical step) then the REMAINING WORK is calculated
REMAINING WORK = WORK - ACTUAL WORK

But wait this is real life here, Once the task is in the hands of the resource and they are in full control of it's plight. The
resource knows how best to bring their
skills to bear on it and how many times they will be interupted while trying to get it done and have looked under the hood of the
task and are better qualified
to make a judgement on how much of their ACTUAL WORK is required to accomplish the task. So f...k the plan. Ask your resource to
tell you how much
work they have done as of right now and how much work they have REMAINING. ENTER those two values. in that ORDER.
When the task is at hand you now have the world's best expert on task estimation at your disposal, the resource itself. Use that to
your advantage and
you will be setting REMAINING WORK to ZERO much more frequently and accurately this way.

So in answer to this

my manager thinks we should adjust the 'work' to 10 hours to match the 'actual work'.

Don't enter WORK, once the plan has been put in motion let it be calculated by Project by sticking to a simple disciplined rule.
enter ACTUAL WORK then REMAINING WORK. As often as possible.

As an aside scenerio,

If you resource happened to see a task that was a full week and he knew he would have it done in the next 3 days. Wouldn't you want
to know after 3 days
that REMAINING WORK is zero. Now that may be an extreme case but multiply even a portion of that ESTIMATE vs ACTUAL variance by a
large number
of projects each with a large number of tasks and you can see the power of having you resources communicate their status as
frequently as possible.

cue the chorus who think they can see into the future better than the rest of us.

 

[Catfish Hunter]

What's in the schedule stays as is. This is your basis for the schedule. I
would assign al task type to Fixed Work. You earn man hours from the
schedule. This is called Actual Work in MS Projects. I ask for "% Complete"
of each task when it's updated. MS Projects does this:"% Complete" X "Work"
(estimated resource man hours) = "Actual Work" (earned man hours)
I don't put actual hours in the schedule. I put these on an Excel spread
sheet IF I want to track productivity. If you estimated it would take 10
manhours to do a task and it took 10 manhours then you ran a 1 productivity.
(Earned/Actual) If it took 20 manhours you ran a .50. A 1 is average, above a
1 is good and below is bad.
When I say manhours this is what I mean: 2 people on a task for a 5 hour
durations is 10 man hours. Good Luck explaning this!!!