Hi Kurt,
I discussed this with a colleague of mine and I have changed my mind
slightly. I do see the use of setting %complete now: sometimes the work
remaining is just easier to estimate by looking at how far along you are
("this brick wall is now 1m high and I need to make it 2m high, so it's
50% done").
On Sun, Jan 07, 2007 at 08:11:45PM -0500, Kurt Maute wrote:
> On Sun, 2007-01-07 at 22:59 +0100, Maurice van der Pot wrote:
>
> > Do you have any examples where it makes sense for the user to specify
> > %complete instead of work done? Because if there is no such situation,
> > then %complete should be no more than a different view on the same
> > information and not something that could be fixed to force a recalculation
> > of work done.
>
> Actually, I think I need to backtrack on some of what I said before. I
> think we need to make a distinction here between how much of the task
> has been completed and how much work (effort) has been logged against
> it. If 'work done' represents the amount of the task that's been
> completed expressed as hours (or days as the case may be), then what I
> said before holds true.
>
> However, if 'work done' is the amount of time spent on the task so
> far... say 8 hours of a 16 hour task, it doesn't mean that the task is
> half complete. After all, maybe we put a trainee on the task when we
> originally thought we'd get the seasoned professional, or maybe we just
> ran into some trouble and its only 25% complete.
I agree. But after updating all fields (changing work done/effort spent
to 8 hours and then either modifying the percentage or extending the
duration of the task), the relation you mentioned before should hold
again.
I'll tell you how I would like to update my plannings. Maybe I'm using a
totally non-standard way of working, but it should at least explain why
I would like to have things work the way I described. =)
I ask people how much time they've spent on each task and add that to
work done. Then I check with them if they think the effort remaining is
still realistic. If not, they give me a new estimate and I
extend/shorten the task.
Looking at the three fields '%complete', 'work done' and 'work', I would
expect '%complete' to be recalculated automatically if I change either
of the others. I'm not sure what should be recalculated if I were to
change '%complete'... probably 'work done'... maybe I shouldn't even be
able to change it.
Now in the hypothetical situation that I had to do something like the
brick wall I mentioned, I think I'd expect 'work done' to be
recalculated if I change either of the others. And if I were to change
'work done', I'd prefer 'work' to change and not '%complete', but this
is probably because for this brick wall '%complete' is less likely to be
incorrect than 'work'.
Some people may prefer one of the 4 other behaviours and we could make
it completely configurable by letting users order the three variables.
For the first example it would be (probably):
work > work done > %complete
For the second:
%complete > work > work done
_BUT_ this would have to be presented in a way that's intuitive.
That is the difficult part.
(This feature would require more changes, like:
- being able to set the default order for all tasks in a project and
maybe also for all new projects
- allowing users to change a property for several tasks at once
But let's first see if it could be useful at all.)
Assuming we can think of a way to make an intuitive UI, what do you
think of this feature?
> Its important to make this distinction, since we'll eventually want to
> create some reports that show Earned Value and other standard project
> metrics. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earned_value_management
Assuming you will want to extend task duration when updating the
planning, you'll have to store the planned value (= original value of
work) someplace else. That or you'll have to save history and generate
graphs from that.
> > What kinds of tasks would have a fixed duration?
>
> They're often (but not always) tasks that involve factors that are out
> of your control. There are good examples from construction - such as
> the application of materials that require time to cure:
It sounds like it should simply be the length of the task then
regardless of calendars and resources.
> Maybe what we need is a 'include non-working time' check box to give the
> user more control. I can see it going either way.
Do you also have an example of a fixed duration task where you would want
to exclude some non-working time?
My apologies for the long message. I hope I'm not starting discussions
on topics that have been discussed before.
Regards,
Maurice.
--
Maurice van der Pot
Gentoo Linux Developer griffon26 gentoo org http://www.gentoo.org
Creator of BiteMe! griffon26 kfk4ever com http://www.kfk4ever.com
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