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Percentage complete or remaining duration

8 replies [Last post]
Thu, 2004-03-04 07:54
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As someone from the ’old school’ I find it somewhat annoying that there is an increasing bias towards using percentage complete when updating plans.

My argument is simply that % complete can bare no relationship to remaining duration and consequently makes the plan incorrect(and subsequently cost to completion.)

I also think that it is somewhat illogical to allow completed (or uncompleted) activities after (or before) Time-now although I have seen many, many instances where plans are shown thus.

Am I missing something here - What do you lot think?

John
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Replies

Tue, 2004-03-09 09:48
#1
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Hi Bernard,
well you wont belive it but i have just figure out the same answer with a few repetative examples. the process can safely be used if the duration remains the same i.e. baseline Vs Actual. but this is not the case in reality as some durations vary. luckily, i have found an M&E schedule for the exact same date i.e. my selected data date but civil works has to be estimated.
any solid ideas about its measurement.. or is it ok for such analysis...
Regards.
hamish
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Tue, 2004-03-09 09:31
#2
Bernard Ertl
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Hi Hamish,

That assumes two things:

1. The physical progress (effort/manhours) is linear with time.
2. The progress was in line with the estimate (ie. there were no problems in the field and the original estimate was good).

Bernard Ertl
InterPlan Systems Inc. - Project Management Software, Project Planning Software
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Tue, 2004-03-09 07:43
#3
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Hi,
I am working on a delay calim and made a programme, a replica of the actual project programme and now i am progressing it. in the past i did the same exercise with subcontractor’s programmes and it worked out pretty similar to what their own plan said (Made using a different planning software). i used percentage complete to update the progressed schedule and because it was planned similarly, so the results were accurate too.
Now i think another point is worth discussing here, which i used before. i have selected a data date and the activites that were not complete and were in progress (Due to lack of progress data for this particular data date), i am using the task completion date and percentage complete.
an example being:
Percentage COmplete=(Duration to date)* 100/Task Act. Duration
What u think??
Cheers.
Hamish
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Sun, 2004-03-07 05:20
#4
Zq qz
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Strongly aggree with Bernard. There are many ways in handling it. and also depend what is your assesment.
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Sun, 2004-03-07 03:04
#5
Vladimir Liberzon
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I agree that % complete is rather strange factor. It may be different for amount (volumes) of work, duration, cost, material consumption. So we just don’t use it at all. It makes no sense.
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Fri, 2004-03-05 09:36
#6
Bernard Ertl
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Obviously, % complete in terms of effort (manhours) does have a bearing on remaining duration. It’s just that it may not have a linear relationship.

The more detailed your plan (and thus the smaller overall durations/manhours assigned to any given task), the less significant the non-linear distribution of manhours across duration for a given task will be.

Our system allows updating % complete in effort (manhours) and duration (time) separately if desired. Some systems allow you to specify the manhour/time distribution ratio (front loaded, end loaded, etc.) and calculate time/manhours based upon that formula. There are many ways to handle it.

Bernard Ertl
InterPlan Systems Inc. - Project Management Software, Project Planning Software
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Fri, 2004-03-05 05:12
#7
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Good point! - the end result is obviously time - but would probably reflect effort given to an activity.
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Thu, 2004-03-04 10:16
#8
Bernard Ertl
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% complete in terms of effort (manhours), time or cost? What are you referring to specifically?

Bernard Ertl
InterPlan Systems Inc. - Project Management Software, Project Planning Software
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