High units on fixed duration tasks   

Good morning all,

Some of my PM's have a problem which is already familiar to this
audience: high units on fixed duration, non-effort driven tasks after
entering actuals.

I've read a few threads on this subject and found some very useful
info (eg. entering 0 hours on the start of a task). Also, I tell my
PM's to set the task type to fixed units before updating but they
insist on fixed duration for reasons you have all heard before :-)

However, there's one phenomenon I did not see explained and that is
finish dates moving forward (not backward).

What I see in some schedules is this: a task has a duration of, say 60
days. After accepting actuals into the schedule, the remaining work is
not spread over the remaining duration, but all remaining work is
concentrated in one week and the task is scheduled to finish early
(albeit by working a zillion hours a week).

I understand how fixed duration tasks can have their duration extended
but I do not understand why this happens. Can anybody help me out
here? I can only tell the PM's "I told you so" for so long - they will
want to understand what's happening.

date: 8 Mar 2007 23:21:33 -0800   author:   rt

Re: High units on fixed duration tasks   

Hi Richard,

Try posting on the server newsgroup as this one is closing down.  Please see 
FAQ Item: 24. Project Newsgroups. FAQs, companion products and other useful 
Project information can be seen at this web 
address:http://project.mvps.org/faqs.htm .

Mike Glen
Project MVP



"rt"  wrote in message 
news:1173424892.922163.139930@h3g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
> Good morning all,
>
> Some of my PM's have a problem which is already familiar to this
> audience: high units on fixed duration, non-effort driven tasks after
> entering actuals.
>
> I've read a few threads on this subject and found some very useful
> info (eg. entering 0 hours on the start of a task). Also, I tell my
> PM's to set the task type to fixed units before updating but they
> insist on fixed duration for reasons you have all heard before :-)
>
> However, there's one phenomenon I did not see explained and that is
> finish dates moving forward (not backward).
>
> What I see in some schedules is this: a task has a duration of, say 60
> days. After accepting actuals into the schedule, the remaining work is
> not spread over the remaining duration, but all remaining work is
> concentrated in one week and the task is scheduled to finish early
> (albeit by working a zillion hours a week).
>
> I understand how fixed duration tasks can have their duration extended
> but I do not understand why this happens. Can anybody help me out
> here? I can only tell the PM's "I told you so" for so long - they will
> want to understand what's happening.
>

date: Fri, 9 Mar 2007 22:10:05 -0000   author:   Mike Glen glenATmvps.org