Relation between work and duration when tracking

[Shahriar Nour Khondokar]

During the tracking phase of a project, if I am tracking by 'Work', if i
insert/update the value for '% Work complete', the value for 'Work remaining'
changes as expected. But the duration value is not changing at all.
Is it possible to make the 'duration' value to change along with change in
'% Work complete' value?

Is there any way to account for cases where the actual 'Work' value exceeds
the estimated 'Work' value; i.e. '% Work complete value' greater than 100%?

 

[Jim Aksel]

Look at a few things.

Work=Duration * Units% * (Work Hours Per day usually 8) you can only pick
2, the other is calculated.

Look at Task Type, it might be fixed duration.
It is best to update the schedule by entering Actual Work, Actual Duration,
Remaining Work and Remaining Duration. Let the percents fall where they may.
You can insert each of these columns to your Gantt chart.
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Jim Aksel, MVP

Check out my blog for more information:
http://www.msprojectblog.com

 

[Shahriar Nour Khondokar]

I have actually found the reason why duration is not changing. I was looking
at the 'Duration' column instead of the 'Duration Remaining' column and it
changes as expected. So, this problem is solved.

But this question/issue is still unresolved:
Is there any way to account for cases where the actual 'Work' value exceeds
the estimated 'Work' value; i.e. '% Work complete value' greater than 100%?

 

[JulieS]

Hello,

I'm glad to hear you were able to work out the issue with the
remaining duration field.

To your other question -- % Work Complete cannot be greater than
100%. However, you certainly can create a situation where the
amount of work completed is greater than the original planned
amount. If you have saved a baseline before tracking the value of
the Work field is copied into Baseline Work. As you record Actual
Work, Project assumes Actual Work + Remaining Work is equal to the
original planned work.

You can make adjustments to Remaining Work as needed while tracking.
For example -- the initial work estimate was 40 hours. You saved a
baseline and the Baseline Work = 40 and Work = 40. Your resources
have recorded 20 hours of actual work. Actual work = 20. Project
will calculate: Remaining Work = 20, %Work Complete = 50%.

If after 20 hours your resources now estimate it will take an
additional 30 hours, you may modify the Remaining work to 30 hours
and Project will recalculate %Work Complete as 40%. The baseline
work is unchanged at 40 hours, but the new amount of work is now 50
hours. Project calculates Work Variance = 10 hours.

I hope this helps. Let us know how you get along.

Julie
Project MVP

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

"Shahriar Nour Khondokar"