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

[Kurt Maute <kurt maute us>]

On Sun, 2007-01-21 at 02:58 +0100, Maurice van der Pot wrote:
> Another question. If you've spent a certain amount of effort on a task.
> How do you determine if you're behind? What is estimated? The percentage
> complete, effort left, work done? I know they all provide more or less
> the same info, but which one is determined first?

The way its worked for me in the past is that the project participants
book the time they spent on the project in a time tracking system that's
not connected in any way to the PM tool, so I really don't know how much
time they've booked against my project until a few weeks later (unless I
ask them).

Generally I hold a weekly status meeting and get % complete updates and
an idea of whether we're performing to schedule or not.

That's just the way its worked for me.  Anyone else care to share their
experience?

> Ok, so what if I were to add a 'work done' field instead of an
> 'effort spent' one and I'd allow the user to select how to track
> progress (in percentage or in work done) as described before?

Sounds good to me.  ;-)

> I could use this feature myself by just filling in effort spent in the
> work done field, because I always just extend the task to make 'effort
> spent' equal to 'work done' before I save the planning.
> 
> In your experience I suppose this feature doesn't offer much, unless the
> answer to my first question was that you estimate progress by 'work done'.

That's ok.  Just because I use a product in a particular way doesn't
mean that's the only way.

-- 
Kurt Maute <kurt maute us>