Ms Project Lesson #3- Scheduling with Resources

Review Questions

Answer the following questions (use MS Project help if necessary):

1) Define effort-driven?

Effort-driven is when you assign or remove people from a task. This causes the task to either lengthen or shorten the duration basing it on the amount of resources assigned to it. When this is done, it does not affect the total amount of work for a task.

2) Under what circumstances would you turn off effort driven scheduling?

Effort-driven scheduling might not apply to all tasks in a project and you can turn it off on a task-by-task basis. When would it not be helpful to keep effort-driven scheduling turned on? Here are a couple of examples:

Complex tasks - You may have a task that is very complex or requires highly-skilled resources. Adding more resources may slow the team down if task activities need additional coordinating or if people need instruction before they can perform.

Uncertain/undetermined amount of work - If you're not sure how much work there will be for a task, turning off effort-driven scheduling can let the assignment of resources and duration determine work accordingly. With effort-driven scheduling turned off, the amount of work can change.

3) Use a real-world example of when you would make a task as a Fixed Duration type task?

An example of fixed duration type task: Your painter is assigned full-time (100%) to paint a room in 4 days. The work is 32 hours. Then you assign the same painter another room to paint. Unfortunately the painter is committed elsewhere in 4 days and cannot work on the task beyond that. The painter can only work part-time (50%) painting the additional room. When you enter 50%, MS Project keeps the duration fixed at 4 days, and recalculates work to be 16 hours.

4) What is the formula for calculating duration?

The formula for calculating duration is Duration = Work / Units

5) What are the eight preset work contours (hint: In the Task Usage view right click on a resource...