Baseline % work complete

Question

Hi, I need some help with MS Project 2010.

I want to set a baseline and make changes on current dates, but I want to update the project to the baseline dates, not the current ones. Because of internal characteristics of the project, it´s necessary to present the current dates with all the changes but to calculate the % of work complete based on the original dates, the ones in the baseline.

Is this possible? or is there another way to do what I want?

Thanks

Answer 1

Richard,

You're going to have to explain this one to us in a little more detail. For example, what exactly is "internal characteristics of the project"?

Baseline fields are designed to capture basic parameters of the original plan thereby allowing the project manager to compare the current plan with the original plan using variance fields and/or earned value metric fields. None of the "actual" fields, (e.g. Actual Duration, Actual Work, etc.), are part of the baseline data since the baseline by definition is a snapshot in time and does not normally reflect the current active plan. By definition:

Percent Work Complete = (Actual Work) / Work

It sounds like you wish to define a new metric

Baseline Percent Work Complete = (Actual Work) / (Baseline Work)

Let's look at an example. Say the original plan had a two week task with an estimated 80h of work. A baseline was saved. After the first week, the project manager sees that actual work on the task was only 20h and because the task is more difficult than originally planned, it will take 20h more work than originally planned. So the current plan shows the task will take 100h total with 20h already completed. Therefore the real percent work complete is 20/100 or 20%. So then why would you want to report that the percent work complete is 20/80 or 25% complete when it is not?

Maybe I'm missing something, but your proposed metric doesn't seem to make much sense.

John

Answer 2

OK, if the plans not costed, then the BCWS in currency won't help you, and MS Project doesn't give you the ability to calculate the BCWS in hours natively, so you'll need a bit of VBA to calculate the value for you. But we might as well go the whole hog and have it calculate the percentage for you, rather than the BCWS hours, as that was always just a stepping stone to get to the end goal.

So the following code will calculate the planned percent complete using the formula you described (baseline work up to the status date, divided by the baseline work value), and output this to the text11 field. Just paste it into a module in the Visual Basic Editor, and then you can run it from the macro menu to refresh the text11 values when you're statusing the schedule.

'________________________________________________________________

Option Explicit

Sub CalcBaselinePerctComplete()

Dim pj As Project

Dim t As Task

Dim TSV As TimeScaleValue

Dim TSVs As TimeScaleValues

Dim HrsValue As Double

Dim PerctValue As Integer

Set pj = ActiveProject

For Each t In pj.Tasks

Select Case pj.StatusDate

Case Is > t.BaselineFinish

'If the baseline end date is in the past, then the PerctValue must be 100%

'so no need to loop through the time scaled PerctValues

PerctValue = 100

Case Is < t.BaselineStart

'If the baseline start date is in the future, then the PerctValue must be 0%

'so no need to loop through the time scaled PerctValues

PerctValue = 0

Case Else

If t.BaselineWork = 0 Then

'if there is no baseline work, then the PerctValue must be 1005

'otherwise we've be dividing by zero

PerctValue = 100

Else

Set TSVs = t.TimeScaleData(t.Start, pj.StatusDate, pjTaskTimescaledBaselineWork, pjTimescaleDays)

HrsValue = 0

For Each TSV In TSVs

If TSV.Value <> "" Then

HrsValue = HrsValue + TSV.Value

End If

Next TSV

PerctValue = HrsValue / t.BaselineWork * 100

End If

End Select

SetValue:

t.Text11 = PerctValue & "%"

Next t

End Sub

Answer 3

Richard,

Your scenario of delayed tasks is pretty much the norm for any real project. It's rare that things go exactly as planned, even for routine projects that may have been done many times in the past. The whole point of earned values analysis is to basically do exactly what you want to do, determine how far ahead (lucky) or how far behind (normal) the project is compared to the original plan. My personal problem with classic earned value metrics is that they describe everything in terms of cost, even schedule variance, under the theory that time is money. Nonetheless, classic earned value seems to be the prevailing method, but that's a whole other discussion.

You mention that you use a work measurement (% work complete) to show dates but in fact, percent work complete has no direct tie to dates, planned or otherwise. So, I don't understand that concept.

Then you mention "real % work complete" and how it is manually changed. What exactly is the "real" work complete? Is it not based on actual work? And how is it "manually" changed?

For my example I think you are misinterpreting what the data is telling us. The actual work value of 20h is not a "planned" metric, rather, it is what really happened by the end of the first week of a two week task. Therefore it is erroneous to say that 20/80 or 25% is the "planned" percent of work completion. Given a linear spread of effort, the true planned completion at the end of the first week should be 40h which would give a planned percent work complete of 40/80 or 50%. Does that make sense?

To answer your original question, yes you could create a custom field with a formula that calculates,

(Actual Work) / (Baseline Work) but in my opinion it would be a meaningless metric.

John

Answer 4

Hi Richard - what you're trying to do sound very like the earned value concept of Budgeted Cost of Work Scheduled (BCWS). This tells you how much money, or how many hours (if the schedule isn't costed), should have been expended on a task up to the status date, according to the baseline schedule.

It gives you a value rather than a percentage, but you could easily divide the Budget at Completion (BAC) for the task by this value (BCWS) to get a baseline % Complete, by putting this formula in a custom field. That would then tell you what the % Work Complete value should have been by now according to the baseline.

If you Google "Earned Value" and "Microsoft Project", you'll find a lot of resources online that will help you get started using the native EV functionality.

I hope that helps,

Andrew

Answer 5

Thanks for the answer John,

I know it doesn't make much sense, but I will tell you what I've been asked to do. The thing is that many tasks have been delayed and some are going to be soon. I will try to explain it.

• We use the %Work complete field to show the planned dates.
• And the real % Work complete is mannually changed according to the work that has been done week by week.
• Now, we want to show that if some task is delayed, how is the % that should be completed according to the original schedule.

In your example: that 25% would represent to us that the task was planned to be at this point at 25% complete, and we compare it with the %Work that the area actually completed.

Is it a bit clearer? Is is possible to do it automatically with MS project?