% Complete to Date

[Jon S.]

I'd like to easily report what percent of work is complete as expected to be
by date. Say I have tasks to be finished last week, this week, and next
week. Some of my tasks from last week are done, but not all, yet some of my
tasks to start next week have begun. Can project easily calculate some %
complete to Date? Or atleast, even if it doesn't give me credit for that
work I am ahead on, can it tell me if I'm up to date with what I said I would
be by now?

Jon S.

 

[Andrew Lavinsky]

If you've got cost associated with your project, you could use Earned Value -
this is pretty much what it was designed to do.

For expected Expected % Complete, you would most likely be looking at a
custom formula like [BCWP] / [Baseline Work]. Then as you adjust the Status
Date in Project > Project Information, the Expected % Complete should change.

If you're not using cost, I am not sure how you would go about doing this.

-A

 

[Andrew Lavinsky]

Coffee wasn't kicking in yet, minor correction on the custom formula:

Expected % Complete = [BCWP]/[Baseline Cost]

If you've got cost associated with your project, you could use Earned Value -
this is pretty much what it was designed to do.

For expected Expected % Complete, you would most likely be looking at a
custom formula like [BCWP] / [Baseline Work]. Then as you adjust the Status
Date in Project > Project Information, the Expected % Complete should change.

If you're not using cost, I am not sure how you would go about doing this.

-A

I'd like to easily report what percent of work is complete as expected to be
by date. Say I have tasks to be finished last week, this week, and next
week. Some of my tasks from last week are done, but not all, yet some of my
tasks to start next week have begun. Can project easily calculate some %
complete to Date? Or atleast, even if it doesn't give me credit for that
work I am ahead on, can it tell me if I'm up to date with what I said I would
be by now?

Jon S.

 

[Andrew Lavinsky]

3rd Time's a charm. This will definitely do it:

Expected % Complete = [BCWS]/[Baseline Cost]

Coffee wasn't kicking in yet, minor correction on the custom formula:

Expected % Complete = [BCWP]/[Baseline Cost]

If you've got cost associated with your project, you could use Earned
Value - this is pretty much what it was designed to do.

For expected Expected % Complete, you would most likely be looking at
a custom formula like [BCWP] / [Baseline Work]. Then as you adjust
the Status Date in Project > Project Information, the Expected %
Complete should change.

If you're not using cost, I am not sure how you would go about doing
this.

-A

I'd like to easily report what percent of work is complete as
expected to be by date. Say I have tasks to be finished last week,
this week, and next week. Some of my tasks from last week are done,
but not all, yet some of my tasks to start next week have begun.
Can project easily calculate some % complete to Date? Or atleast,
even if it doesn't give me credit for that work I am ahead on, can
it tell me if I'm up to date with what I said I would be by now?

Jon S.

 

[Jim Aksel]

Pardon the bump in. Using Earned Value techniques, Micrsofto Project
automatically calculates Schedule Performance Index [SPI] and Cost
Performance Index [CPI]. Insert those columns.

SPI=Measure of Work Completed / Measure of Work Scheduled BCWP/BCWS. Above
1 is ahead of schedule, 1.0 is on schedule, less than 1.0 is behind schedule.
The value is usually displayed as a percent 100%=1.0

CPI=Measure of Work Completed/Actual Costs BCWP/ACWP. Above 100% is below
cost. CPI<100% means costs are exceeding plan... the work may be tougher
than you thought.

For our purposes BCWP=(%Complete)*(BAC).

Now we get crazy -- MS Project can calculate using two methods %COmplete and
Physical%Complete. %Complete deals only with duration and nothing else. If
you claim 25% Complete you are saying your project is 1/4 of the time it will
take to complete the task. Very few projects really work this way.

However, when most people say they are 25% complete, they mean they have
completed 25% of the work involved or 25% of the value (I have laid 25 of
100 bricks). Both of these measure are independent of duration. For
example, work may not produce value or cost in a linear fashion. Planting
corn has labor up front, while the corn grows there is less work, and
harvesting includes more work.

Generally, Physical%Complete is the most correct method to use in most
instances.
--
If this post was helpful, please consider rating it.

Jim

Visit http://project.mvps.org/ for FAQs and more information
about Microsoft Project

 

[Jim Aksel]

I wish to offer some respectful difference of opinion with Trevor. He and I
do this occassionaly, I think deep down we both agree but come to it from a
different angle. My personal opinion is that Physical%Complete can be
"morphed" to accomodate exactly what Trevor is getting at. If you want to
lay 1000 bricks and your are going to take credit "by the brick" then make
that your measure and key in the value to Physical%Complete. It is all how
you define the numerator and denominator.

If EV is taken properly, then indicies (ratios), variance, etc. are actually
meaningful. Trevor and I agree 100% that doing the "wrong" tasks will
artifically pad the indicies and variances.... especially at the higher
levels of summary. This is why I don't like a lot of the "trip wire" indices
touted here in the United States.

To properly do EV, you absolutely must look at the details, and at the
appropriate level of detail. The method must be applied consistently. Trevor
shows you how to get different answers using the various measures of bricks,
work, etc. Bottom line is that you have to have a specifically definable
measure of success... we document that in an Earned Value Managment Plan for
every work package. We plan work to the level that below the work package
level tasks must be completely binary: Lay 12 bricks. There were either
laid or they weren't. The %Complete is either 0 or 100%. This is
essentially a milestone technique. Doing things this way will allow a
consistent measure of Physical%Complete at the Work Package levels. We take
earned value weekly.

Now, the reason why I posted a second time.

The original post asked about status of the schedule.... items that should
be complete are not, items that should start "tomorrow" have already started.
This is a schedule maintenance issue. Here's the four rules we use:

Rule 0: Establish a status date (Project/Project Information/Status Date)
Rule 1: There is no such thing as an unstarted task to the left of the
status date. Establish a new date to the right of the status date.
Rule 2: There is no such thing as unfinished tasks to the left of the status
date. If the task is not complete, increase the duration so that it finishes
after the status date. You get that information from the task owner.
Rule 3: Nothing starts in the future. If a task has a %Complete there is no
chance it started to the right of the status date. Ask the task owner when
it started and enter that date in the "Actual Start" column, not "Start".
Then post your %Complete making sure the task owner has identified when they
believe they will finsih.
Rule 4: Nothing is finished after the status date. If the schedule says the
task finishes "next Tuesday" (to the right of the status date) and the task
owner says the work is complete, then it didn't finish next Tuesday did it?
It finished on or before the status date, so key that into the "Actual
Finish" column (not Finish) and claim 100%.

Something else to think about. The "brute force" logic in MS Project tells
us if two tasks are linked as Finish To Start, then if B follows A, then A
must be 100% before B can start. If B has started, then "officially" you
have a logic error in the relationship. Most often this means you do not
have enough detail in your schedule. An example may be software testing
cannot start until all the coding is complete. That is not entirely true...
If you are inventing "Microsoft Office" you can certainly start testing
"Word" while they finsih coding "PowerPoint".... true, you can't test the
integration of the two, but you can certainly see if Word will do some of its
functions.

We run into this type of logic all the time. As such, you should be
prepared to add additional detail to your schedule as you "learn" when the
project progresses.


And to keep rambling .....

Insert the "status" column. Although "status" works against a duration
driven version of %Complete (bad bad bad), it will tell you "late", "on
schedule" and "complete."

There have been so many posts on this forum of "I want to know what
%Complete I should be at the status date." The answer is use
Physical%Complete and compare it to SPI and that should be 1.00 for every
task. If not, look for tasks with SPI less than 1. There is a very deep
divide in this community over SPI and something called "Earned Schdule" ....
but that takes a book to explain.


--
If this post was helpful, please consider rating it.

Jim

Visit http://project.mvps.org/ for FAQs and more information
about Microsoft Project

 

[SwapnaK]

% COMPLETE CALCULATION

Hi, I am not understanding the % Complete Calculation.

I have reported status at the Summary Task level. Not understanding how
it's distributing status to it's subtasks. Is it done based on dates or
duration or work?

Please help.

 

[Jon S.]

All,

Thanks for your response. I'll try a few things, see where it gets me, and
post some comments later today or tomorrow.

Trevor,

You are exactly right. So I've got 5 metrics I'm tracking for management
reporting and scorecard. Two of which point to timing, and if we are on time
or not. I'm taking a straight count of deliverables completed vs. total due.
Then I wanted to do a % complete. Though in my project plan we are not
tracking dollars, or even work, I will have duration, which I can use as a
scale for work. If i do % complete i'll give myself a weighted completion
average, which will balance with # of tasks completed. I thought I'd take it
a step further, and look for a way to show % complete of what should be
complete.

Consider I have 3 tasks each with 4 sub-tasks but some sub tasks may take
longer than others. The 3 tasks are to begin and end at different times. At
any time during this project, I'd like to know of the work that should be
done, how much is? If I could attached a sample project to show my point, I
think it would help.

Second best would be to show % complete of work that should be completed,
but what would be best is to get credit for work that is completed ahead of
schedule.

 

[Jon S.]

Jim,

SPI might work for what I need. Though I would need to know how it is
calculated. I set a status date, though all SPI shows 0 on a test project
plan I am experimenting on.

Any where you can point me?

Jon

Pardon the bump in. Using Earned Value techniques, Micrsofto Project
automatically calculates Schedule Performance Index [SPI] and Cost
Performance Index [CPI]. Insert those columns.

SPI=Measure of Work Completed / Measure of Work Scheduled BCWP/BCWS. Above
1 is ahead of schedule, 1.0 is on schedule, less than 1.0 is behind schedule.
The value is usually displayed as a percent 100%=1.0

CPI=Measure of Work Completed/Actual Costs BCWP/ACWP. Above 100% is below
cost. CPI<100% means costs are exceeding plan... the work may be tougher
than you thought.

For our purposes BCWP=(%Complete)*(BAC).

Now we get crazy -- MS Project can calculate using two methods %COmplete and
Physical%Complete. %Complete deals only with duration and nothing else. If
you claim 25% Complete you are saying your project is 1/4 of the time it will
take to complete the task. Very few projects really work this way.

However, when most people say they are 25% complete, they mean they have
completed 25% of the work involved or 25% of the value (I have laid 25 of
100 bricks). Both of these measure are independent of duration. For
example, work may not produce value or cost in a linear fashion. Planting
corn has labor up front, while the corn grows there is less work, and
harvesting includes more work.

Generally, Physical%Complete is the most correct method to use in most
instances.
--
If this post was helpful, please consider rating it.

Jim

Visit http://project.mvps.org/ for FAQs and more information
about Microsoft Project

I'd like to easily report what percent of work is complete as expected to be
by date. Say I have tasks to be finished last week, this week, and next
week. Some of my tasks from last week are done, but not all, yet some of my
tasks to start next week have begun. Can project easily calculate some %
complete to Date? Or atleast, even if it doesn't give me credit for that
work I am ahead on, can it tell me if I'm up to date with what I said I would
be by now?

Jon S.

 

[Jon S.]

Trevor,

Not sure what I said to set you off, but clearly your tone went from trying
to help, to wanting to lecture.

I might have bounced around a bit with some terms, but thought my point was
clear enough to guide suggested solutions.

Obviously there is "work" and "cost" on this project, though I won't need to
track them in MSP for this specific project. I understand that % Complete is
a calculation of duration, and understand each of the pitfalls that could
arise. Beyond counting 100 tasks complete out of 200 total tasks as 50%
done, I thought I could improve. So using duration as a SCALE (relative
magnitude) of work I could give a better picture of project status. I
thought to take it a step further, I could use a percent complete and an on
task metric all in one. It could be calculated, so I thought MSP had an easy
option. Clearly there isn't. And although you claim that there is no merit
for "doing 50 tasks before they are scheduled" I would say there are
situations where it is worth acknowledging. If you are loading a moving van
with things from your house, and your plan outlines that you are to do each
room at a time, starting from the front and working towards the back,
wouldn't you want to take into account the few pieces that are packed ahead
of schedule? It happens in all projects, and no amount of project planning
can prevent situations like this.

Thanks for your help and consideration on my topic, but if you don't want to
help me figure this out, you can save your preaching for another newbie.
Otherwise, I look forward to your ideas.

 

[Steve House]

What you are describing with your "50 out of 100 tasks complete" comes
closest to what Project refers to as % Physical Complete. The pitfall of of
what you're describing is that not all of the tasks count equally to the
completion of the project - some tasks are more important and time-consuming
than other tasks. First test flight of a prototype aircraft is a much
bigger task and more time and resource consuming than is taking photos of
the plane for the comp[any employee newsletter. Simply counting tasks
complete doesn't take tht into account.

 

[Jon S.]

I agree completely. That's why I'm trying to find an additional way to
report status.

Some background. My client has implemented a new ERP system, and we are now
into a period where there are some custom enhancements beyond the original
deployment being considered. With over 200 line items, each with several
subtasks for completion (discovery, development, testing and deploying), the
project scope is rather aggressive. There will be a fixed price for each
individual task by a 3rd party developer.

I want to track two metrics for corporate scorecard purposes to show how we
are doing with Time. I'll have others for Cost and Performance. One monthly
metric will be: tasks completed divided by tasks due to be complete. If in
May 28/30 are complete and after June 40/50 are complete, you will see an
increase in number of tasks completed but a downward trend in % complete,
showing me a decrease in progress. The plan for what will be due is based on
the 3rd party’s project plan for completion, and their own resource
availability.

But your point is very valid. I’ve thought of this. I understand that this
count does not present a magnitude of work completed, or work due to
complete. It is clearly a count of completed work. I think, though it isn't
perfect, it is still a good metric because each task is something delivered.
Each count equals a product delivered to the client, so it would be good to
track what is being delivered.

Beyond this, I will have a project plan with 200 tasks, each containing at
least 4 subtasks. I will update the plan periodically but will probably only
count a subtask as either done, or not done. I don’t need the project plan
to run my project, and guide me, as much as to report numerically what has
been done. Monthly I’d like to report % Complete as another metric to
contribute to the score of how well the project is tracking to schedule.
Though I’m not logging work in Project, I can use a simple duration of a task
to give a scale of effort among other tasks.

Rather than trying to arbitrarily say I should be 30% done by May, 50% done
by June and 60% done by July, and report % complete as compared to my
outline, I was hoping to compute from Project a percent complete of what is
due to be complete. I would set each task and subtask with a completion
date. Depending on my status date, I could say that “of the 48 days of work
due to be complete, 36 are actually done.†And a step further would be to
say “of the 48 days of work due to be complete, 36 are actually done, but
also 3 days of work not expected to be complete were finished as well.â€

Though this breaks the rules outlined previously in this thread, it is a
common occurrence on this project. Because we are sourcing this work out to
a 3 party, yet also trying to train in house developers, some work can be
“cherry picked†for training purposes. If task 1 was due to start this week
and task 2 was due to start next week, there might be a situation where
subtask 1 (discovery work) for each task was done at the same time. I agree
that this isn’t ideal, but it happens, and should be counted towards the
progress of the project. I know I could move the project plan to reflect
that now both task 1 and task 2 are starting this week, but it seems less
important to me, than to just note that work was done on task 2, which puts
us ahead of schedule.

I know I could try to institute a better system of metrics, but I’m also
stuck with using certain guidelines per scorecard tradition at this client.
As best as I can tell, what would be great is if I could have MS Project
count all of the days (using days as a unit of effort) of tasks in the
project that have reported as complete, then divide that by total days (unit)
scheduled due up to the status date. This would give a ratio that would
provide a status with some built in logic of whether we are on track or not.
Am I completely wrong to think that this could be a good number to track, as
a component of the total score, on how the project is doing?