Hello.
Today we're going to look at estimating durations and work effort.
So I've actually been painting my house recently, and I've kind of come up with a process that
I've been following.
And it is as follows: So the first thing I do is put down tarp, and I get quite OCD with
that.
So I'm going to say that that's going to take me about a day to complete.
So I put in here "One day duration."
That's a project, considering we have auto-scheduled tasks has actually estimated a one day default
duration.
So I can come in here and change that if I like.
So, I've got these tasks here.
Remove light switch.
Unplug sockets.
Well, that's probably going to take me, let's say for the sake of arguing, half a day.
Okay.
Apply the painter's tape to the walls.
Well, that takes quite a while.
I'd say, maybe another half day.
Paint crown moldings and base boards.
Well, when I do this, I usually go around and paint them.
And then I let it dry for a little while.
Have a cup of tea.
Come back, and do the second coat, because it dries pretty quickly.
So for this it takes me usually about eight hours, or, I should say, a day.
Apply painter's tape to the base boards and crown moldings.
So, once I've painted the crown moldings and the base boards, and then apply the painter's
tape to the base boards and the crown molding, so that when I'm painting the walls and the
ceiling, it won't get any paint on what I've already done.
So, to do that, that takes me another half day.
It's quite a big job, that one.
Then I have to paint the ceiling.
Well, this actually takes quite a while, because of the size of the ceiling and the fact that
I have to do two coats.
So I'm going to say for this one, three days.
It's going to take me three days to get that done.
I'm probably going to paint it, come back, wait for a little while, maybe overnight or
the next day, whatever the case may be.
And then do the second coat, and it should be done.
So yeah, it takes me about three days to paint the ceilings.
Paint the walls.
Well, it takes quite a while to get this done, because there's a lot of walls, and it takes
me a lot of time.
Because I get very OCD when I'm doing it.
So I'm going to say for this one, four days.
Okay.
So, what I've said there along the way was, I'm not working full-time on these tasks.
Some of them I am.
But some of them I take my time.
I leisurely go about it.
So, for that reason, what I want to do is estimate how much work is actually involved
in these tasks.
So I'm actually going to insert the "work" column.
So I come to the start column, right-click , and say "insert" column and I'm going to
insert "work."
So at the moment it says "0 hours."
What do you think the difference between duration and work may be?
Well, duration is simply the time between the task's start date and the task's finish
date.
However, the work, what we're going to estimate next, is how many actual hours of work effort
are going into this task.
So within this one day duration of putting down the tarp, how much real work hours will
I be doing on this task?
For the painted walls, we've already said that there's a gap in my actual work or man
hours.
Okay.
So I'm going to come back to this, and for the "put down tarp" I'm actually going to
say I'm going to work full-time on that.
So it's going to take me eight hours over that course of a day.
Remove the light switch and the plug socket plates.
Well, that's going to take me half a day.
In four hours, I can usually go around and whip around and get that done.
So I'd say, full-time, eight hours.
Apply the painter's tape to the walls.
Okay.
So, I'd say that's four hours again.
Paint crown moldings and base boards.
Well, that doesn't actually take me a whole day, because I stop for a little while.
So I'm going to estimate that to paint the crown moldings and the base boards, it's going
to take me maybe six hours over that one day period.
Apply the painter's tape to the base boards and the crown moldings.
Well, that's four hours.
I work pretty solidly on that.
Paint the ceiling.
Well, it's a three-day duration.
However, in terms of actual hands-on-tools, how long have I actually got the roller out?
And how long am I actually painting for?
I'd say it's only about sixteen hours.
It's eight hours per coat.
I'd say sixteen hours.
So I'll do eight hours work.
Have a break for a day.
Let it dry.
Whatever the case may be.
Come back the next day, and do the second coat.
And it's a similar story for the walls.
But it takes me about twelve hours to do the first coat, because there's more walls than
there is ceiling.
And then twelve hours for the second coat.
So I'm going to say over this four-day period, twenty-four hours.
Okay.
So we've estimated the duration of tasks, and we've estimated the work effort.
Well what was the point?
Well, when we actually come to assign resources, I'm actually going to do the split-view to
do this.
So I'm going to check the details checkbox.
You'll see what the difference is, once we've estimated the work and the duration, how it
helps.
So I'm going to assign Tom Henry to this first task.
And it was one day, eight hours, so he's pretty much going to work full-time, and the units
are there 100%.
And I'm going to do the same for the remove light switch plates, apply the painter's tape
to the walls, assign the same person, Tom Henry.
So we're getting a bit of over-allocation now, which I'll probably have to deal with.
I'll show you about that in a later video.
So I'm coming through, and we can see here for the first time.
For the paint crown moldings and base boards, Tom Henry is working 75% units on this task.
Which means he's pretty much available 25% to another project or another task.
But he's not working full-time.
So there's going to be less cost involved here.
So by estimating the duration, and then going in and saying "Well, actually there were only
six hours in that one-day period.
We just saved two hours of labor."
I'm going to come in and do the same thing for the rest of the tasks, I'm going to do
it a bit more quickly this time.
Okay.
And the paint walls also.
And then we'll review what we did.
So I've assigned the same resources to all of the tasks.
So if we look at applying painter's tape to the base boards and crown moldings, he's working
full-time.
For the paint ceilings, if you remember there was 16 hours, which was essentially two days
of work, over a three-day period.
He's only working 67%.
So, two-thirds.
That equates.
Paint walls, 75%, because of the twenty-four hours within a four-day period.
He's working 75% units.
My Excel project is calculating units on my behalf.
This is the only time it'll ever do it.
And if you are estimating durations and work effort, I really recommend this.
Okay, thanks for watching today.
And if you have any questions, reach out to me, or reach out to us.
Thanks very much.