Hi,

I have very interesting question from one of my Blog readers:

“Hi Nenad,

I would appreciate if you could advise on the following two  topics:

1. How to handle the situation when a task is delayed due to some unforeseen circumstances, but the actual work performed by several assigned resources remains unchanged

For example:

Task A  = 3d with Resources R1 and R2 assigned at 100% each. Work is 48h . R1 work = 24h, R2 work = 24h

Let’s assume that this task is delayed 2 days. So we enter the  Actual Duration of  5d or instead enter the Actual Finish day for the task to correspond to day 5.

So how and  where should we enter value  for each resource so the 5d task is 100% and the actual work for each resource is planned 24h?

Note: Please explain this for each task type!

2. Same situation as above, but the Actual Duration of the task is shorter than planned, while the Actual Works for resources are same as planned.”

OK! Let me show you that with MS PROJECT 2016!

First I am going to create brand new Project with one Task with 3 days Duration:

No I am going to create two resources:

and finally, I’m going to assign those resources to Task:

Now I’m going to switch to the Task Usage View:

For my example, I added three more Columns: Actual work, Remaining work, and Task Type.

I will now change duration from 3 to 5 days, for:

Fixed Units and Fixed Duration

As you can see, Work is extended as well, from 24 hours to 40 hours per Resource. But, if I click on the Yellow sign, I can choose:

In this case I will get what I want, e.g. work will remain the same for each Resource, but they will work less per day:

Fixed Work

If I change Duration on that Task Type, I will not have to choose anything to get the same result, because by default, Fixed work means that if I change Duration, work will remain the same (e.g. 24 hours per Resource), and it will be spread among 5 days (e.g. each Resource will have to work less per day on that Task).

The same thing will happen if I short Duration. But, in that case for Fixed Units, and Fixed Duration I will have to choose that I want to Increase the hours work per day, and with fixed Work it will be automatically done for me.

Hope this helps.

Regards!