show percentage should have been complete

[Marcus Holmes]

Hi All,

I have a bunch of tasks in my project (like 500) and a baseline that shows
the timeline and how long each task should take.

What I would like to see is one number that shows me what percentage
complete the entire project should have been at this date. I can figure
out how to show the percent complete, but how do I make it tell me how far
along I should be?

I tried the Slipping filter and that's good for showing percentage
complete per task, but not necessarily at the project level and showing
how much each task SHOULD BE completed.

Any ideas?


Thanks,

Marcus

 

[Steve House]

Percent complete is such a loosey-goosey measure that it is almost
meaningless on the project level. For instance, I have two tasks i
parallel that make up my project, both of which were scheduled to take 10
days. We're at the 5 day mark. One task we've worked 2.5 days, the other 5
days but we think we're going to finish it early in 7.5 days instead of 10.
Is our project as a whole 50% done, or 37.5% done or 75% done or some other
number entirely?

You DO have some indices of schedule that might fulfill the need you're
looking for in that percentage. Look up in help the discussion of earned
value, especially the Schedule Variance and Schedule Performance Index.
That can give you some valuable indications of whether you're on time or not
and/or on budget or not.

 

[Marcus Holmes]

You DO have some indices of schedule that might fulfill the need you're

looking for in that percentage. Look up in help the discussion of earned
value, especially the Schedule Variance and Schedule Performance Index.
That can give you some valuable indications of whether you're on time or not
and/or on budget or not.

Interesting. I looked into Earned Value and choosing the Detailed Styles
for each task, but I'm having trouble picking the metric that will show me
completion based on time.

It seems that this is way too complicated than it should be. I basically
just want to know assuming all things are equal and each day is a equal
unit, where should we be at (example: I have a task that takes 10 days,
it's day 9, I should be at 90% completion).


Marcus

 

[Steve House]

Yep - and that would be the (BCWS/BAC) * 100 If we scheduled 10 days and
had finished 9, we are scheduled to use 80 man-hours total and have worked
72 man-hours - (72/80) * 100 = 90%. The thing about earned value is it
"normalizes" the data so you can compare apples to apples which is more
difficult to do when you simply use duration and percentages. It takes into
account the fact that duration is not the same thing as man-hours, yet it is
the man-hours of work that drive the project to completion.

 

[Marcus Holmes]

Yep - and that would be the (BCWS/BAC) * 100 If we scheduled 10 days and

had finished 9, we are scheduled to use 80 man-hours total and have worked
72 man-hours - (72/80) * 100 = 90%. The thing about earned value is it
"normalizes" the data so you can compare apples to apples which is more
difficult to do when you simply use duration and percentages. It takes into
account the fact that duration is not the same thing as man-hours, yet it is
the man-hours of work that drive the project to completion.

OK then how can I make Project do the above calculation for each of my
tasks? Is that pre-defined style or do I need to create one?


Thanks,

Marcus

 

[Steve House]

Mis-typed my response a moment ago. Should have said, at the end of 9 days
we *should* have worked 9 days, hence BCWS/BAC. If we had actually worked
8, we should have been 90% complete but actually are 80% (BCWP/BAC).

 

[Steve House]

You can create a custom field (assuming here you're using project 2000 or
later) Tools Customize Fields. The BAC is the Baseline Cost. So your
"should be at %" field is computed by is (BCWS/BaselineCost)*100. Add that
field as a column to the tab
les of your choice.

 

[Steve House]

Close but doesn't do what he wants - He want to see something that say we
are halfway through the project - at this date we should have been 50%
complete but we are in fact 40% complete. Your method will show where we
are but not where we should be according to the baseline.

 

[anton]

Set the status date first and then tools/tracking/update project and set to
0% - 100% complete.
You should see the planned progress in the % complete field....hope it
helps.