Bypassing calculations

[Hart]

Want to status a task and have Project recalculate work
based on percent complete of original budget without
recalculating duration. For example, I'd like to status
a 10-day, (100) hour task at 50% and fix the remaining
duration at 7-days (will now be an twelve day total
duration as the original estimate may have been
incorrect) and find (50) remaining hours of work
(REGARDLESS OF RESOURCES/UNITS ASSIGNED). Possible, easy
adjustment?

 

[Gérard Ducouret]

Hello Hart,

First, you set the Task Type : Fixed Work (in the Task Information /
Advanced dialog)
Then you set the Remaining duration (in the Update Task dialog for ex) at 7d
That's all.
NB : this process doesn't bypass the calculations, it just change the way Ms
Project balances the equation:
Duration x Units of res = Work load

Gérard Ducouret

 

[Steve House]

First of all, percent complete in Project refers to duration, not work.
They usually track in synch but not necessarily so. A second issue here
is you're asking to violate the fundamental equation that holds all
projects together: Work = Duration * Effort. That simply may not be
violated under any circumstancs. So here's the options - you say the
resource is working at 10 hours per day (effort) and will do 100
man-hours of work, for a total duration of 10 days. He's 50% complete,
hence we are 5 days into the task and he's done 50 hours of work. Now
you want to show remaining duration as 7 days. The only way that can
possibly happen is either a: the resource is still working 10 hours per
day but the work is really turning to require 120 hours, not 100 hours
and there's 70 hours to go; b: work is still a total of 100 hours and
there are 50 hours to go but the resource is only going to be working a
shade over 7 hours per day, not 10; or c: he's been at the task 5 days
but only has done 30 hours worth of work, leaving 7 days at 10 days each
to go. What you ask is simply not possible, not because of any
limitations in MS Project but because of the nature of the fundamental
mathematics of project management itself. You simply cannot ignore
resource assignments - if there's 50 hours of work to do and you now
estimate it will take 7 days to do it instead of 5, the rate at which
the resource is working, his effort assignment, is by definition lower
than originally expected and absolutely must be adjusted accordingly.