Newbie: Report of Total Hours

[Mark Jerde]

Sorry if this is an FAQ I missed here:
http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm

MS Project Professional 2003.

I'm using Project to come up with the total effort for a job we're getting
ready to bid on. I'm nearing completion of listing all the tasks & subtasks
and assigning guesstimates of the time each subtask will take. I'm trying
to find a report that will give the total hours for each task & subtask, but
so far I haven't found it. Take the Level 2 task and its subtasks below:

Develop Grommet Interface Software
Acquire Two Grommet Implementations 2 days
Analysis / Design 1 wks
Implement Phase 1 2 wks
Implement Phase 2 2 wks

I'm looking for a report that has the total time summed up:

Develop Grommet Interface Software 23 days

(Assuming my addition is correct. <g>)


The last time I did this I gave up and copied everything to Excel, where I
know how to sum. I'd really like to figure out how to do it in Project,
because it's likely there will be several rounds of changes as we staff it
prior to bid.

Thanks in advance.

-- Mark

 

[Mike Glen]

Hi Mark,

Welcome to this Microsoft Project newsgroup

Are you referring to Duration or Work? I suspect you're after the Work
totals. Either Insert/Column.../and select the Work field, or View/Tables:
Entry/Work.

FAQs, companion products and other useful Project information can be seen at
this web address: <http://www.mvps.org/project/>

Hope this helps - please let us know how you get on )

Mike Glen
MS Project MVP

 

[Mark Jerde]

Mike -- Thanks for the response.

"Work" doesn't seem to be what I'm looking for, as everything is zero. I
assume I could set everything to 100% done... ;-)

I'm just wanting to "roll up" all the durations.

Thanks.

-- Mark

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi Mark,

Assign a dummy resource 100% to each task, then Work=duration
Duration is never rolled up

Alternative: set a formula dina field such as duration1 =[Duration] and have
the summaries rolled uop.
HTH

 

[Steve House]

Actually your arithmatic is off <grin>. Seriously, 1 week normally = 5 work
days and only working days count towards duration. So the arithmatic in
days should be 2+5+10+10 or 27 days. But further complicating it is you
have made to reference to the sequencing of the tasks and that is crucial.
Without information on task sequencing, rolled-up duration is a meaningless
concept. Duration for a summary is the total number of working time units
between when the earliest starting subtask begins and when the latest
finishing subtask ends - it is not a simple additive value. As you outlined
it, with no dependency links, the total duration of the development phase is
10 days since your list implies they all start together and the latest
finishing tasks are either of the Implementation phases.

Some others have discussed work and their points are valid but you need to
be clear whether you are referring to work or duration here - they are not
the same thing at all. Without resources, in a very real sense there is no
such thing as work on a task because without knowledge of how many resources
are working on it and what percentage of their workday they're devoting to
it, there is no way to define the relationship between work and duration.
You may say a task is 40 man-hours, well and good. But if we have 10 people
full-time, its duration is 4 hours. If we have one guy 4 hours a day on it,
its duration is 10 days. It's kinda like Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle
applied to projects - with no information on the resources we can know the
work but will be totally in the dark about duration or we can know the
duration but totally unable to know anything about the work required. <lol>

 

[Mark Jerde]

Actually your arithmatic is off <grin>. Seriously, 1 week normally =
5 work days and only working days count towards duration. So the
arithmatic in days should be 2+5+10+10 or 27 days.

Umm... obviously my math error was on purpose to see how carefully

But further
complicating it is you have made to reference to the sequencing of
the tasks and that is crucial. Without information on task
sequencing, rolled-up duration is a meaningless concept.

Agreed it is meaningless for running the project, and determining the true
start & ending dates, critical path, etc.

However, when all you're trying to do is come up with the *total* billable
hours to bid on a project, it's not meaningless. Additionally, this is an
unusual project in that there is only one billing rate so a straight
summation of the hours is all that's needed.

I pasted the tasks & days into Excel & made the hours summation. Next time
I hope to have MS Project figured out enough to use it rather than go
through the Excel hassle.

Duration
for a summary is the total number of working time units between when
the earliest starting subtask begins and when the latest finishing
subtask ends - it is not a simple additive value. As you outlined
it, with no dependency links, the total duration of the development
phase is 10 days since your list implies they all start together and
the latest finishing tasks are either of the Implementation phases.

Some others have discussed work and their points are valid but you
need to be clear whether you are referring to work or duration here -
they are not the same thing at all. Without resources, in a very
real sense there is no such thing as work on a task because without
knowledge of how many resources are working on it and what percentage
of their workday they're devoting to it, there is no way to define
the relationship between work and duration. You may say a task is 40
man-hours, well and good. But if we have 10 people full-time, its
duration is 4 hours. If we have one guy 4 hours a day on it, its
duration is 10 days. It's kinda like Heisenberg's Uncertainty
Principle applied to projects - with no information on the resources
we can know the work but will be totally in the dark about duration
or we can know the duration but totally unable to know anything about
the work required. <lol>

The only value of interest at this point is the 40 man-hours, added up with
all the other man-hours of all the other tasks.

Thanks.

-- Mark

 

[Steve House]

That summation you're looking for is a summation of work, not duration.
That's why I mentioned all that, because billable hours are not duration
hours. If you send 100 consultants all at once over to your client to do
100 tasks of one hour duration each, all starting at the same time and
ending at the same time, do you bill him for 1 hour or 100 hours? One hour
is the duration, 100 hours is the work. While they are related, simply
putting the durations into MS Project will not give you the sum you require.