percent column - are we all just guessing?

abbyc.hg

We're implementing a new template set for projects after some great sessions at ENGAGE. I'm writing some automations and getting things ready for end users to test but I keep coming back to the percent column.

I'm stumped - how are others selecting or defining their percentages as a project progresses? How do we differentiate between say, 40% and 50%? It feels sort of like I'm just making up a metric based on my feelings as the PM and that doesn't really jive with my personal project philosophy.

Michelle Choate 2

Most people just select their percentages based off of personal feeling and knowledge of the task that they are assigned. You can create formulas based off of things you track inside of sheets, but you would have to define all your possible variables to do so correctly. Then if you are using the % column as part of a project plan, you could not have it be a column formula, because of the way things roll up to the parent rows. You could create automations in that instance if you had your variables defined, say if you have used so much of your budget, and it has been so many days between start and end dates, etc.