Need for Work to equal Duration

[Nic2024]

We have tasks that we're giving a set 80 hours to complete. This task will
be completed in 80 hours no matter how many people are working on this task
(which will fluctuate). Is there a setting that can make WORK = DURATION
despite how many resources are assigned?!

 

[Rob Schneider]

We have tasks that we're giving a set 80 hours to complete. This task will
be completed in 80 hours no matter how many people are working on this task
(which will fluctuate). Is there a setting that can make WORK = DURATION
despite how many resources are assigned?!

There has been so much written already in this newsgroup over the years
about work vs. duration. Suggest you go back and read some of the
classic posts.

Simply: Work is not duration and to make them the same makes no sense
to try to think of it that way. It's only coincidental that work 80
equals duration 80 (just numbers).

I think you are saying: The fixed duration, so tell Project it is a
Fixed Duration task, of this task is 80 hours. You have to decide if
this is 80 hours of work time, e.g. 8 ten hour days, or 10 eight hour
days, or 80 elapsed hours regardless of your work calendar. It is *not*
effort driven, so ensure effort driven is "no". Then when you assign
oodles (a technical term) of resources to that task, it will only take
the fixed duration that you told Project. Each resource should be given
only the number hours of work on the task so that when all assigned work
is summed, it add up to 80.

It's all in how you describe the Task.

Don't try to make work=duration because it never will be and you'll be
confused about Project as long as you try to make it so.

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Nic2004 --

Work and Duration are two entirely different measures. Duration is the time
span (measured in days) during which the work is actually performed by
resources. Work is the amount of time (measured in hours) that the
responses spend on the task.

Based on your description, what I believe you mean is that the task must be
completed in 10 days, regardless of how many people work on it, and the
total amount of Work must be 80 hours. Here's how I would approach this:

1. Select the task in question.
2. Enter 10 days in the Duration column.
3. Click Window - Split to apply the Task Entry view.
4. In the bottom pane, click the Task Type pick list and select the Fixed
Duration task type.
5. Select the Effort Driven checkbox, if it is not already selected.
6. Click the OK button.
7. In the Resource Name column, assign one or more resources to the task so
that their total Work is 80 hours.
8. Click the OK button.

By using this approach, the 10 day Duration value is locked, so it will not
change. And because the task is Effort Driven, the 80 hours of work will
remain constant while adding or removing resources on the task. Hope this
helps.