RPAX Risk Items: No Duration

What it is: The amount of time allowed to complete a task has not been provided one or more instances. The duration is the number of days given for the task to be completed. This is different from the work estimate, which is the amount of active work time that will be needed to complete the task at hand. For example, a team member is given Monday and Tuesday to clear a lot and it's expected that it will take eight hours to perform this task. The duration is two days (Monday and Tuesday) and the work estimate is eight hours. 

Why it matters: On a micro level, it lets your team members know how many days they'll have to get their work done. On a macro level, only when a duration has been assigned for every task can you determine the total number of days needed to complete your project. The duration combined with dependencies (the order that tasks should be performed in) allows Office to calculate and provide a truly accurate forecast for your project's completion.
Before durations have been added--note that the number of days associated with the Critical Path is currently four. This assumes that each SmartTask will take one day to complete.


After durations have been added--note the number of days listed at the end of the Critical Path now accurately captures time required to complete this project.

What's next: Add a duration for every task in your project plan. This is easiest to do quickly in Power Grid or Timeline view mode. By default, all durations are set to one day. If you're not sure how much time is needed, check with the team members responsible for completing those SmartTasks, or use a duration with some padding.


Once all dates have been entered and saved, go to the Critical Path view for the project and click Update.