Re: Completion should be effort invested instead of percentage of duration

[Kurt Maute <kurt maute us>]

On Sat, 2007-01-20 at 21:59 +0100, Maurice van der Pot wrote:
> On Sat, Jan 20, 2007 at 10:23:24AM -0500, Kurt Maute wrote:
> > I think we need to answer this question first, or my brain gets all
> > twisted around:
> > 
> > I think you're talking about 'effort spent' - right?  
> > Because to me - 'work done' is another way of saying %complete
> 
> Well, that's a difficult one to answer. For me it's more or less the
> same. 
> 
> If everything goes according to plan, then spending 5 hours means
> getting 5 hours worth of work done. 

Agreed.

> Now if things turn out to be harder than anticipated and working for 5
> hours on a 8 hour task gets you half way, then you'd say work done is 4?
> When updating the planning you'd have to extend the task's duration to
> set a realistic end date. That action would at the same time increase
> the 'work' field.  So if work was 8 hours before and is now 10, then
> work done should now be 5 (because you're half way done), which is again
> equal to effort spent. 

Yes.  All true.
However, extending the completion date automatically isn't normal PM
practice (at least not in any of the companies I've worked for).
Normally, a baseline plan is agreed upon with the customer when the plan
is complete.  If things don't go as planned during execution, the
project is reported as behind schedule and the team works on strategies
to bring it back in line with the original schedule (such as adding
resources).

If attempts to bring the project back in line with the agreed upon
schedule fail, the a new baseline may be negotiated with the customer,
and then you'd extend the time line at that point.

> Only if extending the duration would not increase 'work', would I be
> willing to make a difference between 'work done' and 'effort spent'.

I could see a use for creating a view of what a projected schedule would
look like based on progress to date so it can be compared to baseline,
but not to automatically adjust the project schedule on the fly.


-- 
Kurt Maute <kurt maute us>