How Late Is That Task

Abstract

Analyzing a project and determining which tasks are late is important to all project managers. Depending on the severity and extent of time, late tasks may pose a risk to the overall project success. Using Microsoft Project built-in fields assist in determining how much duration and work are remaining, though it does not provide for how much duration and work should have been accomplished. This paper will describe a project monitoring technique in which data is analyzed to determine exactly how much time a task is behind schedule, or ahead of schedule, and if behind then the associated resources required for the task to complete on the planned finish date. This is achieved by working with user-defined variables which will open a new door in analyzing, assessing, and managing project schedules.

How Late is that Task?

What are schedules but times. As an IV&V/QA Project Manager, one of my duties involves analyzing project schedules and providing assessments of those schedules based upon the times presented. Performing this role entails reviewing various schedules and reporting on those monthly. Part of this analysis involves determining which tasks are late and assessing if those tasks pose a risk to the overall project success. While this examination provides the number of late task and the areas of concern, it does not allow for just how far off the task is late: is it a few hours late that would require minimal overtime or is it many hours behind schedule and would require additional resources to bring it back in-line? This paper will describe a project monitoring technique in which data is analyzed and used in a derived calculation to determine exactly how much time a task is behind schedule, or ahead of schedule, and if behind then the associated resources required for the task to complete on the planned finish date.

While there are many tools available for project monitoring, Microsoft Project (MSP) was used for this exercise. In MSP there are many built-in fields for project monitoring which include Duration, Work, Percent Complete, and Status Date. The Status Date is used to provide a point in time in which the project is analyzed and is key for determining if a task is late. Though these fields assist in determining how much duration and work are remaining, it does not provide for how much duration and work should have been accomplished. By having this type of information, an investigation may be performed on planned vs. actual perspectives and a more informed decision can be made in regard to scope, time, and resources. Note that cost attributes have not been mentioned because these are not necessary in this analysis. Even though it may seem odd to view a schedule without this information, the cost attributes may not be provided or relayed for a multitude of reasons.

Typically, when planned vs. actual task parameters are discussed then a variance is introduced. But if the task is in-process, task variance is undeterminable by definition. So, what if there was a need to determine variance mid-stream? This is where the user-defined variables are introduced. These fields can be used to define a formula, identify graphical indicators, specify display options, or define a calculation. The chart below begins the story.

Status Date of 8/8/2015

The task above is a 10 day/80-hour task for one resource which is late since only 20 hours have been worked where 40 hours should have been worked. To remain on schedule, an additional resource would need to be assigned to cover the 20 hours missed in the first week. This may seem trivial; however, it shows how much more effort is required to complete the task on the planned finish date.

Before the user-defined fields are covered, the fields required, calculations, and key values used in determining how much work should be accomplished are provided.

The process uses the Project Date Difference (ProjDateDiff) calculation, using the Start and the Status Date, that allows for determining the number of days the task has been active.

In MSP, the various project statuses are listed with the associated numeric value which is a key value in the calculation.

This analysis makes the assumption that schedules and allocated work are distributed evenly for the duration of a task. Because it is not possible to predict the status of a specific project task, all statuses will be used in the calculation. The example below is the pseudo code for the equations that are included at the end of the paper. By using these equations, it is possible to analyze the task status and determine if the task is behind or ahead of schedule and how much time it would take to bring it back in-line.

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