Task Type Programming Bias

[Hadi]

Experts,

I understand that when I change a duration on a fixed duration task, MS
Project is programmed to change the work hours and not the units. That's
causing me big problems in keeping both durations and hours fixed. The
projects I work on have to have both duration and work fixed not just one or
the other. If I change the duration on a fixed duration task I'd like to see
the units change because I want to know how many people I need to throw at
this task to get it done on time and within budget. Is there possible way to
change this. would macros work? I need a work around really bad

thanks!

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Hadi --

You cannot fix both the Duration and the Work values, as the Task Type in
Microsoft Project fixes only one of the three variables (Units, Work, or
Duration). Nor can you change the default programming bias of what happens
when you change the Duration value on a Fixed Duration task. The software
ALWAYS recalculates the Work and there is no way to change this,
programmatically via VBA or any other way. Perhaps Fixed Work would be more
relevant to you, but keep in mind that if you change the Work value on a
Fixed Work task, the programming bias changes the Duration! Hope this
helps.

 

[Steve House]

The easy solution is not to make the task a fixed duration task in the first
place. Since you wish to set the work (ie, the budget) and have the units
recompute while adjusting the duration to some desired value, make the task
a fixed work task and it will behave exactly as you wish. IMHO, fixed
duration is incredibly over-used. It really should be reserved for those
truly rare situations where the task really is of a fixed length such as
where we have to test a certain component for 24 hours, no more and no less.
Fixed duration should not be used in an attempt to impose a mandatory,
arbitrarily chosen, schedule on the project - instead let the physical
nature of the tasks and the human capacity of the resources be the primary
determiners. If later on you need it to be fixed duration, set it back.
There's nothing that says a task's type is engraved in granite - in reality,
the task type is merely a switch for you, the scheduler, to use to insure
Project does the correct calculation when you edit a task's parameters.
Different reasons for the edit may call for a different task type and the
type of a given task might change dozens of times over the evolution of the
final project schedule.

 

[Hadi]

Trevor, Dale, and Steve,

Thank you so much for your expert advice and recommendations. The only thing
that scares me with Fixed Work is what Dale mentioned in his last sentence
about being carefull when changing the Work on a Fixed Work task. I'm afraid
that some users will start playing around with the Hours and start getting
all of these decimal durations. I guess we will have to do more training and
education

Thanks again to all of you

Hadi

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Hadi --

You are more than welcome for the help, my friend. And remember that
"training and education" are how we solve many user problems with Microsoft
Project!

 

[Steve House]

I have to ask, what is wrong with decimal durations? I've seen a number of
posts where people have complained they were occuring but I've never
understood why they felt that was a problem. I have a task that requires 5
days for one guy to complete. I discover I have an extra body that I can
add to the task to work with him. Now we're getting the work done twice as
fast as before so the task will now finish in 2.5 days. If the orginal task
was finishing Friday afternoon, the resources responsible for a follow-on
dependent task would be expecting to start on their part on Monday morning.
Now I can go to them and tell them to move it up and be ready to start
Wednesday at noon instead. Seems a perfectly natural way to manage the
project as far as I can see.