Resources, work and duration

Resolved · High Priority · Version 2007

Mon 8 Jun 2009, 15:36 Delegate Stuart said...

Stuart has attended:
Project Management - Framework & Processes course

Resources, work and duration

Hi Andrew,

During our recent training session we discussed wanting to fix the project so that tasks' durations would not change if resources were added to them.

You showed during the session that you can set tasks to have 'fixed duration' or 'fixed units' or 'fixed work'. The former (fixed duration) I think we believed would be more useful to stop the aforementioned happening. However when we do this (select all tasks, shift F2 to go to task info, then set the task type), and having entered in an amount of 'work' for each task, when we change the resources on the task the work units change automatically. Also, it seems eventhough we have selected 'fixed duration', the duration changes when new work units are inputted.

I think what we would like is for both duration and work to be fixed when we enter in task data and then the have Project automatically adjust the resources . Is this possible?

Many thanks

Stuart

Tue 9 Jun 2009, 10:11 Trainer Andrew said...

RE: Resources, work and duration

Hi Stuart

Thank you for your question. At its core MS Project uses the formula:

Duration X Units of resource = Work

when working with resourced tasks.

The control we have over it is to fix one of the values prior to making an edit to one of the remaining two. Project is then left to recalculate the remaining value.

The formula kicks in when tasks that already have resources are edited. An alternative would be to remove your resources from the task in question, set the task values up as you wish then add your resources back onto the task at the unit levels you require. This circumvents MS Project tweaking your task but gives the Project Manager more work to do.

Microsoft have a small summary table that describes the impact of fixing / editing values in the formula.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/project/HP100920391033.aspx?pid=CH100666551033

I hope this helps - do let us know if you have any further questions.

Kind regards,
Andrew

Mon 15 Jun 2009: Automatically marked as resolved.

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