project scheduling

[fickasm1]

Every Monday morning, my area is responsible for updating all project plans to determine new estimated start and end dates as well as the variance as compared to the baseline. We do this in MSP by using:
'tools'
'tracking'
'update project'
and then selecting 'reschedule uncompleted work to start after (current date)'
and 'entire project'.

Often times when this is done, MSP does not appear to adjust the dates correctly & therefore shows invalid data and variances. It also adds unwanted constraints and changes task durations.
For example, before the work was scheduled, a task had a duration of .25 hours and was set to start and end on the same date (11/2). After updating, the duration changed to .50 hours with a start date of 11/9/04 and an end date of 12/2/04.
Does anyone know why this sort of thing happens?
Is there a better way to update the project plans each week?

 

[PDQBach]

There are too many variables to easily answer your question. Duration is a particularly egregious example since duration is so flexible (a 1 day task can take 1 day of duration or 1 month of duration).

Off the top of my head, I'd think you have to look at things like the task calendar, resource calendar, project calendar, task constraints, predecessor constraints, successor constraints, work assignment contours and whether or not the task has any splits. You might also want to consider displaying start/finish with the time along with the date.

That's a roundabout way of saying "Project will apply W=U*D to the remaining work taking into account a lot of other factors.