%Complete, %Work Complete, and Project without Resources with MS PROJECT 2016!

Hi,

I’ve got a question from one of my Blog Readers:

“Please clarify the following: I have created a Sample project in MS Project 2013, with tasks and assigned duration with required predecessors.
I have base lined the plan and started tracking the progress.
I see both the % Complete field & % Work Complete as 100% for all the completed tasks.
My question is why the % Work complete is being shown as 100% even though the work /baseline work being zero and the actual work also being zero.
The % Work Complete is calculated using the formula (Actual work/Work) *100 . Is this a bug?”

This is a basic thing in any version of MS PROJECT. I will show you a simple example an I will explain why this is not a bug at all. I’ll use MS PROJECT 2016!

I will follow steps, as my Blog Reader did. So, first I will crate very simple Project, and I will put predecessors:

Now, I’m gong to save the Baseline:

and:

I will show now Gantt Chart View with some additional columns:

Now I will mark all Tasks as 100% completed:

and I’ll get:

Now, I’m going to explain what happened:

When Task is marked as 100% completed, than %Work completed is also 100%. Why? Because Task cannot be completed if work is not completely done. It is logical. Can you imagine that Task is 100% completed (%Completed field), but you have to work on it, for example, 4 additional hours? It simply doesn’t make any sense
Work, Actual Work, and baseline work is 0 (ZERO)? Why? Because work will be more than 0 if you:

Assign Resources to Tasks
Manually enter work in a work field without assigning any Resource to Tasks

Anyway in both cases (with work greater than zero, or with work equal zero), %Work Completed is 100% when %Completed is also 100%!

Hope this helps.

Regards!

About Nenad Trajkovski

Location: Zagreb, Croatia Occupation: Project Manager Interests: Project Management and MS PROJECT He was born in Zagreb, Croatia at 1963. After completing his college he started working on projects in different business areas (banking, manufacturing, automotive industry, distribution, oil companies, etc.) developing and implementing ERP systems into different companies. He has got a lot of experience working with people in different business processes and also possesses great knowledge in information technologies and financial services. Today he works as a business consultant, adn Project Manager in PERPETUUM MOBILE d.o.o. Zagreb. He is a regular lecturer for Project Management in MS Innovation Center in Varaždin, Logosoft Sarajevo in Bosnia and Herzegovina and SEAVUS GROUP in Skopje Macedonia. He was named the best lecturer of WINDAYS 2008 while his lecture was also voted as the best. In addition, he was in TOP 10 lecturers at the MS SINERGY 2009 and MS VISIA 2009, 2010. Shares first place as the best lecturer of KulenDays 2009 and 2010 and PMI Conference 2009 in Zagreb. He is also a regular lecturer in the MS Community. He is a Certified Accountant and a PMP (Project Manager Professional) and a PMI-RMP (Risk Manager Professional), MCP, MCT, and Microsoft Certified Technical Specialist - Microsoft Project 2010. From 01.01.2012 awarded with MVP (Microsoft Most Valuable Proffesional - Microsoft Project)!

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