What is the difference between duration and work in ms project

Most PM tools allow you to designate a task to one of these three types. As the name suggests, it tells the software what not to change. It depends but in most cases, when the task is planned, its effort is determined as something that is least likely to change. In the article, we have tried to understand the natural relationship between D, W, and U and how changing one affects the other.

Product Integrations Deployment Security. Customers Showcase Case Studies Reviews. Services Support Training Remote Services. More Affiliates Resellers Blog. Try Free Demo Login. I have never seen such strong reactions to a software as I have seen for Microsoft Project. If you click Fixed Work in the Task type list, you cannot change the Effort driven setting for the task.

Fixed work tasks do not have flexible work values and are therefore always effort-driven. You can view and change the task type for each task directly in your view by inserting the Type field. Click the column to the right of where you want to insert the new column, click the Insert menu, and then click Column. In the Field name list, click Type. If you want to change the hierarchical structure of a task or subtask as part of an outline structure for your project, you need to indent or outdent the task rather than change the task type.

If you want to impose restrictions on the way Project calculates the start and finish dates of tasks, you need to set a task constraint, rather than the task type.

In a If you revise units If you revise duration If you revise work Fixed units task Duration is recalculated. Work is recalculated. Duration is recalculated. Fixed work task Duration is recalculated. Units are recalculated. Fixed duration task Work is recalculated. The table below summarizes the task type and the impact on the schedule.

These instructions are specific to Microsoft Project Look closer into task types Overview of task types Remove effort-driven scheduling from your tasks Change the task type Overview of task types The three task types used in Project are fixed units, fixed work, and fixed duration. Each of the task types affects scheduling when you edit one of the three elements as follows. Examples of how the task types change the numeric values Let's say you have a fixed-units task, with 1 full-time resource unit available for 8 hours each day.

Notes: If you click Fixed Work in the Task type list, you cannot change the Effort driven setting for the task. Need more help? Expand your skills. Get new features first. Was this information helpful? Yes No. Thank you! Any more feedback? The more you tell us the more we can help. Can you help us improve? Resolved my issue. Clear instructions. Easy to follow. No jargon. Pictures helped. Didn't match my screen.

Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. Asked 6 years, 9 months ago. Active 4 years, 10 months ago. Viewed 31k times. I am unable to understand the reason why. I have attached an edited screen shot to understand the problem better. Improve this question. Greenonline 1 1 gold badge 4 4 silver badges 13 13 bronze badges.

Ayusman Ayusman 1 1 gold badge 3 3 silver badges 6 6 bronze badges. Basically, we need first to understand the three type of Task Types. In the following page office support page is explained with a good example: 1. Use this setting if you want to control the duration of tasks by adding or removing people.

Example : It takes hours to design a large garden as part of a housing project. And you want the garden built as s — Weslor. Add a comment. Active Oldest Votes. Improve this answer. JulieS JulieS 2, 1 1 gold badge 9 9 silver badges 9 9 bronze badges. Bit of a semantic issue I suppose- it is entirely possible to enter Work without entering Duration and it is not possible to answer "How long is this going to take" without knowing how much resource is applied.

Because MS-Project allows, or even encourages, users to enter the Duration first, and not the actual core Work effort it causes much confusion in new users, witness this question.

Marv Mills Marv Mills 4, 1 1 gold badge 17 17 silver badges 27 27 bronze badges. If you've enjoyed this blog post, then please share it using the icons below. Thank you! Fixed Duration. Icebreakers build trust.

Trust requires knowing each other. Icebreakers help people get to know each other. Connect the Learning Outcomes of the session to the icebreaker.