As the Project Manager, you should work to standardize the estimate information that you receive from your team members.

There are two task level fields that will impact the results when you enter your estimates: Type (often called Task Type), and Effort Driven (a flag field).

Type may be set to Fixed Duration, Fixed Work, or Fixed Units. Whatever value you “fix”, Microsoft Project will hold constant and not change it.

Effort Driven may be set to Yes, or No.

The combinations of these values that may be used are:

• Type = Fixed Duration: Effort Driven may be Yes or No.
• Type = Fixed Units: Effort Driven may be Yes or No.
• Type = Fixed Work:  Effort Driven is always Yes.

There is a formula that Microsoft Project holds constant for task calculations, when you are working with resources:

Duration x Units = Work

If you change one of these values, another will be recalculated. The field that will be recalculated depends on the Type assigned to the task.

There are actually two different Units fields that exist at the assignment level:  Assignment Units and Peak – sometimes referred to as Peak Units.

When we say these are assignment level fields, it means there will be a different value for each resource assigned to a task. For example, if a task has two resources assigned, there are two assignment level records with different values.

The Assignment Units field can be thought of as the percentage of time that a resource is initially assigned to a task.  If part of the information you receive as an estimate is a percentage of time that a resource will be working on a task, that percentage would be entered into Assignment Units.

When you assign resources, as we will discuss in the next section, if you don’t enter a value into the Assignment Units field, the Assignment Units will be set to 100% if the Max. Units in the Resource Sheet for that resource is 100% or more. If Max. Units is less than 100%, the Assignment Units will be set to the Max. Units value.

The Assignment Units value will never be changed unless you manually change it. Microsoft Project will not recalculate it.

Peak can be thought of as the current percentage that a resource is assigned to work on a task.

If you enter an Assignment Units value, Microsoft Project will initially set Peak equal to the Assignment Units.  The Peak value however may be recalculated by Microsoft Project to balance the formula if you change either Duration or Work. Peak is the Units field that will be recalculated by Microsoft Project in the formula:

Duration x Units = Work

You cannot directly modify the Peak  value – it is always calculated by Microsoft Project.

The table below shows, for each of the Task Types, what value is recalculated if you make a change.

Remember only you can change Assignments Units, and only Microsoft Project can recalculate Peak Units.

The impacts of the Effort Driven flag field are visible when assigning additional resources to a task.

When an additional resource is added to a task that already has an assignment:

If Effort Driven is set to NO, (which it can be for Fixed Duration or Fixed Units) when an additional resource is added, the Work value will increase.

If Effort Driven is set to YES, when an additional resource is added, the existing Work hours are spread across the resources, and:

• For Fixed Work and Fixed Duration the Peak value is recalculated
• For Fixed Units the Duration is changed

** Best Practices:

– If you want Microsoft Project to calculate the task Duration for you based on Work hours entered, use Fixed Work and assign a Units and Work value for each resource assigned to the task.

– You have an estimated Duration, and want to assign resource Work across that Duration, use Fixed Duration, enter a Duration value at the task level, and enter Work hours or Units, for each resource that you assign.

– A project may have tasks with different Task Types. Not all tasks in a project need to have the same Task Type.

– You may also do your planning with tasks set to one Task Type, and then change them during project execution. This is particularly helpful if you have a requirement for Earned Value.

Summary Tasks will always be Fixed Duration with Effort Driven set to No.

If you are unsure which approach works best for your project environment, create a test project that includes all of the combinations of options and work through the scenarios that you expect. Then you can identify what to use to achieve the results you need.

Once you have decided which Task Type or Types and Effort Driven values you will use, they may be set in several ways.

The default can be set in your Project Options as described in the handout, Recommended Project Option Settings, in Lesson 2. You can specify that this is the default for this project only, or for All New Projects.

Remember that these settings only affect new tasks.

If you need to change existing tasks:

1. You may use the Task Entry combination view and make the change in the bottom pane.

2. If you need to change a large number of tasks, you may use the Multiple Task Information Dialog Box.

Select the tasks you need to change. You may use the Shift and Ctrl keys to select multiple tasks.

On the Task ribbon, in the Properties section, select the Information button. The Multiple Task Information Dialog Box is displayed.

Select the Advanced tab and select the Task Type and Effort Driven settings you need. Click OK.

or,

You may even select ALL tasks in your project to change at once. Make sure all tasks are displayed. Press the F3 key to remove any filters, and select All Subtasks from the Outline pulldown in the Data section on the View ribbon to expand all summary tasks.

Click on any column heading (the field name).

Then, as described above, on the Task ribbon, in the Properties section, select the Information button. The Multiple Task Information Dialog Box is displayed.

Select the Advanced tab and select the Task Type and Effort Driven settings you need. Click OK.