Can I do this in project?

[Keith Henderson]

I have 3 tasks that will take about 4-60 hours each to complete. I would
like to input the tasks and the time to complete into project and let
project tell me how much time per day I need to work on it to complete it in
a specified timeframe.

 

[Steve House [MVP]]

Yes, you can do it easily in project. Is that 40 to 60 hours or 4 to 6
hours or really 4 to 60 hours? Either way, what you are describing sounds
like the Work value in Project. The required time frame is the duration.
Work is the amount of output you achive while duration is the length of time
it takes you to do it. In a 5 day workweek you have 40 hours of duration.
If you work on something 100% you perform 40 man-hours of work over that
time period. But if you work on it at a 50% level you only do 20 man-hours
of work over the same 40 hour time period. Making sure you understand the
difference between work and duration is one of the keys to using Project
effectively.

Before going on, we need to ask if these tasks have to be done in sequence
or if you can work on them together devoting part of each day to each of
them? You said "completed within a specified timeframe." Is that for all
of them together as a whole or does each one have to be done within a
certain time? What is the specific requirement?

 

[Keith Henderson]

Some edits are quick (4hours) and some are complex (60+ hours).

No the tasks do not have to be done in sequence, they are all separate.

I don't know if this is possible, but I would like to 'play' with the times
and dates. Eg. I would type in 20 hours for project a. Say, I wanted to
complete it before Thanksgiving. Would project tell me what amount of time I
would need to spend on it each day to accomplish this. Or tell project that
I will spend 1hr each day and have it calculate when it should be done. Will
it let me select the days that I will work on it (eg, skipped days, due to
weekends or Tequilla)
It would also be nice to input the duration for three or more projects and
work on them simultaneously. To get one done by THX, one by CHR, one by 2009

 

[Steve House [MVP]]

You can do it in Project but it seems like hunting flies with an elephant
gun to me. I have a task that will take 20 man-hours of work. I want to
complete it by Christmas, 7 weeks from now. I work on average 40 hours per
week, 8 hours per day. There are 35 working days, 280 working hours
between now and Christmas. Therefore I need to spend 20/35 hours per day or
something between 30 and 45 minutes a day working on it. That's exactly the
same calculation Project does but at this scale of complexity I don't need
hundreds of dollars worth of software to do it. At this level all you need
is a calendar, pencil, and scratch paper; a middle-tech solution would be
the Outlook calendar and Windows calculator; or you can go really high-tech
and use Excel.

If you do want to use Project anyway, perhaps so you get the pretty Gantt
chart pictures, you'd list yourself as a resource (the only resource?) in
the resource sheet and input the tasks and the durations within which you'd
like to complete them. Split the screen and mark the tasks fixed duration.
Assign yourself to the tasks as the resource working them. Enter the work
estimate for the task and Project will calculate the percentage of your
working time you'll need to devote to accomplish that much work within the
duration specified. To play with the date, switch the task type to fixed
work and when you edit duration Project will recalculate the effort, the
percentage of your time, accordingly. If you look at the resource sheet and
see your name listed in red, it means you've scheduled yourself for more
total work in a day than your calendar says you want to do overall.
--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer/Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

 

[pratta]

Hi Keith
I think what you are asking is what Project does well.
Create the task/s and link them if necessery
- set the task duration that you seem to know, and set the task to Fixed
duration.
then add resource to it until it looks right.
OR - if you have an idea of the work involved, create a column for work, set
the task to Fixed Work, add a resource and then change the duration
accordingly.
Project is predicated on Work = Duration times Units (resource). This is a
universal truth.
Hopefully this is what you were after.
Rgards...........Pratta