Actual Work and Task Finish Date

[JAWs]

I'm an experienced PM, but new to working with the MSOP 2003 tool. I
was trying to enter actual work into a baselined plan, and was
surprised to find that Project decides that a task is complete when
all of the planned work has been exerted.

On the projects that I have been involved in, few tasks require
exactly the planned amount of work. It seems logical that the PM
needs to readdress the budget and/or the schedule if the planned work
doesn't produce the planned progress, but it seems odd that Project
assumes that a task is complete when the amount of planned work has
been consumed, and doesn't even alert the user that it is doing so.

In other words, to me % spent does not often equal % complete, but in
MSOP it appears to be so.

Am I thinking about this incorrectly?

Jim Williams, PMP
Norfolk, VA

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

You can enter Actual Work and Remaining Work separately
Entering an actual work > planned work and leaving remaining work at 0:
which other value than 100% would project assume for completeness?
HTH

 

[JAWs]

HTH,

That works, as long as I enter remaining work after entering actual
work. The percent complete calculations seem odd, but that's OK for
my application - I'm recognizing 50% of BCWP (using phys compl) when
tasks start and 100% when they finish - nothing in between.

Thank you very much.

Jim Williams, PMP

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Should have mentioned that. Glad it works for you now.

 

[Steve House]

If the % Complete seem odd perhaps it's because Project's "% Complete"
refers to duration, not work while it's earned value is of course based on
work. There is a separate field for % Work Complete which may or may not
contain the same numbers as the % Complete field. Project calculates % Work
Complete when you update % Complete, and vice versa, based on your entries
unless you explicitly disable the "updating task status updates resource
status" setting.

 

[JAWs]

Thanks, Steve. That does explain why the numbers looked odd to me.

Jim Williams, PMP
Norfolk, VA