Duration vs work

Question

I'm using Project 2010. I am having trouble understanding the relationship between duration and work.

In my mind, work is the amount of work required and duration is the amount of time.

If there is only one person working on the task, I can see where the duration and work would be

the same if you assume a person works on the task 100%. But the fact is that most of my tasks

require somewhere between 1 and 5 days of labor but make take place over a 6 month period.

In other words, people work on them intermittently, from time to time.

How do I get project to show duration independently of work so that I can accurately report both

the amount of work a task entails and the amount of time it actually took to do it?  I tried entering

the actual start and finish dates, but that just resulted in automatic calculations that resulted in

numbers that had no relationship to reality.

Answer 1

Enter the anticipated duration.  Split your screen using the Details check in the View ribbon to view the Task Form in the lower pane.

Set the task as fixed Duration and click OK.

Assign the resource and enter the work estimate.

Project will spread the work out evenly over the duration and you can view the accurate assignment units in the Peak Field added to the Task Usage or resource usage view.