Track Actual Work Completed versus estimated

[StephHansen]

I want to be able to track how many hours a task is taking. I have the duration set as my estimated hours and actual work showing number of hours put in to this point. I would also like the top most part, to tell me how many hours total have been worked on the project

It is not calculating the Summary Task Info correctly. If I have 2 tasks under a summary task (1 for 4 hours, 1 for 2 hours-actual work) the Summary actual work is displaying as 12 hours, not 6. (See Below)

Task Name Duration % Comp Actual Work
Client GUI Module 12.88 days 31% 64 hrs
Biographical Info 2.63 days 29% 12 hrs _ Design 5 hrs 80% 4 hrs _ Functionality 2 days 13% 2 hrs

What I want to see is actually:
Task Name Duration % Comp Actual Work
Client GUI Module 12.88 days 31% 6 hrs
Biographical Info 2.63 days 29% 6 hrs _ Design 5 hrs 80% 4 hrs _ Functionality 2 days 13% 2 hrs

Any ideas a better way to do it?

Thanks!

Stephanie

 

[PDQBach]

The layout of your samples is somewhat perplexing (I can't tell, for example, if one of the tasks is a summary task and, if so, what subtasks are part of it.)

Tracking hours is easy: you ask the resource you assigned to the task: how many hours did you work?

Summary tasks always total the number of hours/days for Work, Actual Work, Remaining Work of the underlying detail tasks.

Summary tasks always show a Duration from the Start of the earliest underlying subtask to the Finish of the latest underlying subtask.

You don't show Work. Why!?!?!?! It's *THE* most important piece of information in a project.

You do show %Comp. Why!?!?!?! It is the dumbest field (only necessary for EV calculations); you should be using %Work completion.

 

[StephHansen]

I am asking how to show Work Completed... When I use the work field, it changes my duration. I am asking how to properly set this up to track estimated/allotted time as well as work performed.

The layout should have read this way:

Task Name Duration % Comp Actual Work
Client GUI Module 12.88 days 31% 64 hrs
Biographical Info 2.63 days 29% 12 hrs
_ Design 5 hrs 80% 4 hrs
_ Functionality 2 days 13% 2 hrs

What I want to see is actually:
Task Name Duration % Comp Actual Work
Client GUI Module 12.88 days 31% 6 hrs
Biographical Info 2.63 days 29% 6 hrs
_ Design 5 hrs 80% 4 hrs
_ Functionality 2 days 13% 2 hrs


And my question refers to Microsoft Project, not the people I am working with, I am quite familiar with how to gather that info from them. Why bother responding to people if you are going to have a condescending tone to your response?

Stephanie

 

[PDQBach]

Well, you still aren't showing Work so you'll never be able to see how long a task is taking.

As for entering time, I use View | Task Usage. On the left side I show Work, Actual Work and Remaining Work. On the right side I show work and actual work and set the TimeScale to what is appropriate.

I also asked two questions, neither of which you answered.

 

[StephHansen]

Thanks for responding, maybe I am not being clear...

What I am asking is:

What columns do I display to show:

Estimated Work (Currently I am using Duration)
Actual Work Completed to Date
% Work Completed

?

Thanks for your help.




Stephanie

 

[StephHansen]

I have added Work, actual work, remianing work, duration, % work complete, start finish using the Task Usage view.

Problem is, if I estimate 16 hours (work) and it only takes 12 hours to complete (actual work), it thinks i still have 4 hours remaining work, if I switch it to 100% work complete, it changes actual work to 16. What do i use to track estimated work versus actual work and show where our estimates are correct and/or incorrect?

Thanks again!

Stephanie

 

[PDQBach]

Or, of course, you are being clear and I am the one who is dense.

Estimated work: this is the "Work" column.
Actual Work to date: this is the "Actual Work" column.
%Work Completed: this is the "%Work Completed" column.

You didn't ask but ...

Elapsed time: this is the "Duration" column.

Assume I tell you that I want a program. At the beginning of the month I tell you that I will give you two weeks to write it. You estimate that it will take a total of 4 days of work to write, test and document the code. (And that's okay because you've got a couple of meetings to attend, some other work, etc., so it isn't as if you have lots of spare time.)

Work: 4 days.
Program Start date: Mon, May 2.
Duration: 10 days.
Program Finish date: (May 2 + 10 days) Fri, May 13.

Then you break it down:

Program code is 2 days of work; test is 1 day of work; documentation is 1 day of work.

You should be showing the Name, Start, Finish, Duration, Work, Actual Work, Remaining Work, %Complete, %Work Complete and Successor columns. (You can show others but these are the important ones.)


(Hate variable fonts for this stuff)

Write Program For Boss.
==Code: Start - May 2; Duration - 4d; Work - 2d; successor - Test
==Test: Duration - 3d; Work - 1d; successor - Documentation
==Documentation: Duration - 3d; work - 1d

The summary task ("Write Program For Boss") will automatically:
1. Get the Start date from the earliest start date of the detail tasks.
2. Get the Finish date from the latest finish date of the detail tasks.
3. Calculate the overall Duration based on those two dates.
4. Calculate the Work by totalling the Work of the detail tasks.
5. Calculate the Actual Work by totalling the Actual Work of the detail tasks.
6. Calculate the Remaining Work by subtracting the total Actual Work from the total Work.

Note that I did *not* give a Start date for each task (except for Code); I let Project determine the Start dates by using predecessor and successor logic.

Note that I did *not* give a Finish date for each task; I let Project determine the Finish date based on the calculated Start date plus the Duration of the task.

How are we doing so far? (btw, many people enter a start date and a finish date for each task. That is *not* the way to get the benefits of using Project.)

 

[PDQBach]

Missed your subsequent post. It must have appeared as I was typing my earlier message.

Display these columns: Work, Actual Work, Remaining Work.

In Work, you have already entered 16 hours.
In Actual Work, you have already entered 12 hours.

In Remaining Work, enter 0. This will adjust the Finish to reflect the _actual_ finish of the work.

The method above has a hidden side effect: when you enter Actual Work, Project will treat the Start date as the _actual_ start date.

Go back to my previous example.

You have 2 days of code but gave yourself 4 days in which to write it.

If you didn't do any work (on the code) on the first day then we need to reflect the fact that the coding took place on day 2.

First: View | Task Usage
Second: On the right hand side, in the Gantt chart area, RightMouseButton and make sure you have selected Work and Actual Work.
Third: On the top of the right hand side, RightMouseButton on the dates header and choose Timescale... Set up Units and Count as appropriate for your purposes.

Now ... set things up so that you can see (on the left side) the Start, Finish, Duration, Type and Constraint Type field.

On the right side, on the Actual Work line, below the first box that shows Work for the task, enter a 0.

What happened to the Duration? What happened to the Finish date? What happened to the display of Work on the right side?

The answers to those questions will vary depending on the information displayed in those five fields (well, there's a sixth but we'll ignore that for now).

We'll talk more later.

 

[StephHansen]

That is a terrific start! Thank you for your help! Will play around more to get more comfortable, but I appreciate it tremendously.

Stephanie

 

[PDQBach]

One clarification:

I wrote "Timescale... Set up Units and Count as appropriate for your purposes."

For this example the Units should be set to days and Count should be set to 1. This way, you will be able to enter 0 as the number of Actual Work hours for the first day and 8 as the number of Actual Work hours for the second day.

 

[runals]

Hello, I am just joining the discussion here. One of you said that % Complete is of no or little value. I disagree. I use MSP to plan a project. I want to use it to track a project. If there are 100 hours scheduled for a task.

I put it in as duration (I knwo it shoud be work) and hava another task that is 20 hours following the 1st, apply resources and baseline it.

Now I want to track it. The person puts 50 hours on task 1 but because of trouble he is 20% complete. I want MSP to move out the duration of task 1 to 250 hours and to have task 2 bumped out to the end of task 1. The failure of MSP to do this easily makes it a very poor tool.

I have found a way to do this, but it is a real clicking pain. Selecting the task to track and going to tools - tracking - update task I can put in %complete and have it disconnected from the actual duration. If I enter actuals on the tracking view like I was traineed to do then if I put in 50 hours I am 50% complete and that is that.

I suspect that I am missing something, or that I am entering data the wrong way. What do you think?


Andrew Runals

 

[PDQBach]

Right off the top, you say you're using the tool contrary to the way it's designed to be used. It's like my telling you to chop down a tree and, faced with the option of using the cutting edge of the axe or the back of the axe head, you choose the latter. You've got the right tool but you've made your life a lot harder.

Duration is NOT work; during is elapsed time and work is the effort expended to accomplish the task.

I tell you I want a report in two weeks (80 hours). You estimate that it will take 20 hours of work: 8 hours research; 8 hours writing; 4 hours polishing.

Suppose you do no work during the first day. Where are you? You are 10% complete and 0% work complete. Nobody cares about how much time has elapsed, they only care how much work has been done. (If people cared only about time elapsing and not about work then you would be paid for showing up at work not for delivering results.)

I strongly suspect that you don't understand the differences between Fixed Work, Fixed Units and Fixed Duration tasks. I've written about this elsewhere on this board (search for my handle).

In the meantime, stop treating %Complete and %Work Complete as data entry fields (just because you can enter data, doesn't mean you should). They are derived fields and you should be changing the underlying data entry fields to see the derived values.

(I am trying to find some time to write a FAQ on Duration, Work, Units, task types and related information. Come back periodically over the next couple of weeks to see if I've finally got round to posting it.)

 

[mvee]

PDQBach -
Thank you for all of your contributions to this thread.
They have pointed me in the right direction, but I am still not understanding how I can keep track of how much time I estimated vs actual.


If I say:
Write Program For Boss.
==Code: Start - May 2; Duration - 4d; Work - 2d; successor - Test
==Test: Duration - 3d; Work - 1d; successor - Documentation
==Documentation: Duration - 3d; work - 1d

And enter actual work as
1d
2d
2d
respectively.

My ("estimated") work column's values change to
2d
2d
2d

But those weren't my estimates.
My original estimates were:
2d
1d
1d

I want to keep my estimates and keep my actual so at the end of (or during) the project I can look at how well I estimated.

I tried using the Baseline Work field, but for some reason, that field doesn't automatically tally (sum) the sub tasks...

Any more insight?

Thanks, M

 

[PDQBach]

You keep your estimates by

1. creating the plan
2, entering estimates into Work and Duration
3, generating a baseline.

Your original estimates are now stored in Baseline Work and Baseline Duration (there are other fields that get baselined but we'll ignore them for this discussion).

I just looked at one of my plans and, contrary to your experience, my Baseline Work does, in fact, carry (at the summary task levels) the totals of the Baseline Work for the underlying tasks.

I suspect that you are viewing tasks which you created after you ran the baseline so, naturally, they have 0 in their baseline totals. Look at the Baseline Start and Baseline Finish of those tasks. If those dates show NA then they were never baselined.

 

[mvee]

Thanks PDQBach.
You are right. I hadn't baselined those values. I get it now. Thanks for the help.
-M