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I am using MS Project 2010. My Task Type is defined as Fixed Work. I have tried Fixed Duration and it only seemed to make the matter worse.
I have a task that spans 10 days (2 weeks). However, the task is only estimated to take 20 hours. At the end of the first week 13 hours of work was completed. Although there is still another full week to complete the remaining 7 hours of work MS Project changed the Finish Date on the task, adding one day to it.
Why? How can I prevent this from happening?
You do not want to prevent this from happening! This is what the tool is supposed to do. It will readjust when you finish based on the progress you make or don't make.
Turn the example around. If you made less progress than you predicted, it would mean the end date should slip to the right. If you disallowed project from doing that, then you would still show on time finish, which is masking the lack of progress you have made.
Except for extraordinary reasons, I use fixed duration for my work packages almost exclusively. Based on intermediate milestones, I want project to calculate the new finish date based on how we are progressing. This is how our schedule risks are exposed. Taking it further, if on the critical path, then you have to mitigate right away. If not on the critical path, you can defer.
Something is not quite right here. A 10 day duration task with 20 hours of work will, by default, spread the 20 hours of work evenly across the 10 days - 2 hours for each day. If you completed 13 hours of work in the first week, Project should calculate 7 hours of remaining work and move the finish date earlier (to the left) instead of adding a day.
I agree with David - Project is designed to recalculate projected finish dates based upon the actual progress. If you set the tasks as fixed duration, the duration of the task will not change, Project will just recalculate the assignment (peak) units to spread the remaining work out along the original duration. So, your comment that Fixed Duration makes things worse isn't making sense to me either.
Is there something else going on? Multiple resources assigned?
