Best/Good Practice request: True up miscellaneous tasks

Looking for better practices than what I am currently doing.

Example:

On Tuesday, I expect to get something from the vendor. Usually that means end of day for planning purposes. I put that in the schedule as either a milestone (0 duration) or a full day task.

On Wednesday, Admin Albert needs to spend less than 2 hours on logging it or whatever.

After that, Engineer Erin can start working and we expect Erin to work at a normal pace and complete the task by the end of day Friday.

If I put 3 days in the duration for Erin, it shows up as ending 2 hours into Monday.

So I have to figure out why this is so and put in 22 hours (2d+6h) for duration or make the predecessor +6h or something else.

Albert is going to spend two hours on Wednesday, but they won't likely be the first task.

Erin is going to spend more than a day, less than 2 1/2 the rest of the week.

And I'd like to enter and maintain that more efficiently than it feels like I am doing.

Thanks for the input.

Craig

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Comments

SashaR

Could you use resource management rather than durations to indicate workload? You could put the duration as 2.75 days or 2d 6h then use RM to indicate they actual workload. 20% of their time over the 3 days.

As far as calculating the 2.75, you could add the predecessor (which will add the start date, end date, and duration). Then adjust the end date to the correct day (Friday). When you do that, the duration will automatically calculate for you.

J. Craig Williams

Sasha,

Thanks for the comments.

Here's a picture to help me explain

All three groups show the same information.

The green highlighted ones on the bottom are the only real "knowns"

1. vendor provides something on Tuesday

2. Albert spends 2 hours after that, likely the following day.

- likely NOT the first task as shown in the top group

3. Erin needs to finish by Friday and her task is expected to take 8 hours

Actual utilization for Erin over the 3 days is 33%, not 36% (as shown in the top group) or 50% because of shift to Erin start Thursday.

The second one may be closest to reality -- except it padded (6 hours on Wednesday, 8 hours the next two days, and who knows how many on Tuesday)

If management was breathing down my neck to "shift the schedule to the left", then I might set up reminders to let Albert know as soon as it comes in, a reminder on Albert's log in to let Erin know she can start, then another when Erin is complete so things keep moving and don't wait for Monday.

The more I think about it, I think that's maybe what I'll try next ... use the second group (so I don't spend so much time messing with hour durations) and lots of Row Reminders.