Task Types in Microsoft Project

 

TASK TYPES

 Microsoft Project calculates your project's finish date using the latest finish dates of its tasks. The duration of each task is determined by the formula duration = work/resource units. For any task, you can choose which piece of the equation Microsoft Project calculates by setting the task type.

SUMMARY TASK

 A summary task is the top-level task with sub-tasks expanding below.

 

Develop Strategy is a summary task. 

FIXED WORK TASK

 In a fixed work task, the amount of work is a fixed value and any changes to the duration of the task; the number of assigned units or the number of assigned resources does not impact the task.  For example, if your project has a fixed contracted number of hours the task should be set to Fixed Work task. 

Work = Duration * Units

 Work is the effort required to do a task. There are two types of work: the work of individual resources on a task and the total work for the task.

In the example below, Work is fixed at 8 hrs so the two men allocated to paint the ground floor get the job done in ½ a day. (Duration decreases)

Increase units, Jim and Robert, duration will decrease.  If you decrease duration, units must increase because work is fixed.

Using one of the Table view menus shows this more clearly.

The first example shows the Entry View and the second example shows the Work view.

The current view is showing .5 days duration but because work is fixed, the Work view shows 8 hours work to be completed.

Therefore, the two men are working 4 hours each. The Work amount has stayed the same.

FIXED DURATION TASK

In a fixed duration task, the duration stays the same regardless of the number of resources assigned to the task.

 Duration = Work / Units

 To calculate a fixed duration task, you only need to define a time-period for a specific task.  For example, five-day review can be created as a fixed-duration task regardless of how many people execute the review.

The example below shows a fixed duration where two painters have be allocated to a one day task, they can both work 8 hours but because the duration is fixed they are only allocated four hours each.  This is an example of Effort Driven Fixed Duration.  A Non-Effort Driven fixed duration task is costed at the full rate; whereas the Effort Driven fixed duration task shares the cost between attendees.

  

EFFORT DRIVEN TASK/FIXED UNITS

When you add or remove resources from a task Project will extend or shorten the duration of the task to accommodate the additional or reduced resources applied to the task.

Effort driven tasks are set as default prior to Project 2010, after 2010 the default is set to not Effort Driven.

 

When the Effort Driven option is activated it is important to understand the difference between initial resource allocation and additional resource allocation because Project does not reduce the duration on the initial allocation only to changes to that allocation positive or negative.   The example below shows a series of tasks with columns displaying, task type, Effort Driven and cost.