Work vs Duration

[Mani]

I am looking for clues on when to use Work and when to use Duration for my
plan. To complicate things slightly, I am going to consolidate about 20
plans some of which are better using Work and some with Duration, in my
opinion. In addition, our consolidated plan will be constrained by a
deadline for completion in December.

 

[Mark Durrenberger]

It's easy Use both...

Work - this is your estimate of resources (human) for the project - track
this if you are managing to a labor budget.

Duration - this is your estimate of activity duration. Track this if you are
managing to a schedule.

Since most projects have cost AND schedule targets, both are necessary...

In some organizations you'll find that schedule is the explicit metric
(everyone cares about how the project is doing re: schedule... and cost
(work/effort/labor hours) gets little attention until the PM starts asking
for more people in order to meet the schedule...

Mark


--
_________________________________________________________
Mark Durrenberger, PMP
Principal, Oak Associates, Inc, www.oakinc.com
"Advancing the Theory and Practice of Project Management"
________________________________________________________

The nicest thing about NOT planning is that failure
comes as a complete surprise and is not preceded by
a period of worry and depression.

- Sir John Harvey-Jones

 

[Mark Durrenberger]

Yes and no

I agree that working with duration and deadlines makes sense. I do not
endorse the concept of % complete unless there are discrete countable
events - in another post, I indicated that if you were digging a 100 foot
trench and had dug 50 feet I would gladly give you 50% complete. However
most "white collar" work does not have discrete countable events (like
"Design" work) so percent complete is way too subjective... I'd encourage
"Done/non done" reporting and report out slippage against major
milestones...

HTH
Mark


--
_________________________________________________________
Mark Durrenberger, PMP
Principal, Oak Associates, Inc, www.oakinc.com
"Advancing the Theory and Practice of Project Management"
________________________________________________________

The nicest thing about NOT planning is that failure
comes as a complete surprise and is not preceded by
a period of worry and depression.

- Sir John Harvey-Jones