Duration % complete vs Physical % complete , how common is Physical % complete?

Member for

12 years 5 months

I greatly appreciate the response.  I see your industry is Petro Chem.  I have worked on those types of projects and have worked on turn-arounds.  I have also done earned value work.  In this case, we are talking about a large commercial project.  In this type of project there is a heavy mix of time based durations.  For example, design activities technically could be physical % but the hassle is not worth the work on most of these actitivies.  It creates twice as many ways for PMs to be wrong.  Or I could calc the dur % and fill it in the physical % columns.  I think it comes down to mathmatically how many activities you can update in the time you have and how much input you get from your team on those activities.  Oil and Refinery work is more of a buttoned down systematic approach making that more possible.  Commercial construction is a little more wild with more variables.  There is more churn, faster churn making physical % complete more trouble than its worth.  I think most PMs would work backwards to fill in the phs % complete and remaining duration.  If they don't don't have to match it - you need justification or proof in 2 ways not just one.  I understand why they want this done.  In theory, its ok, in practice its not.  That is just one schedulers opinion - in the end it comes down to how much time you have, and that always seems to be a tight. I used earned value on convernment jobs where the durations were long, most commercial specs down allow activiities over 15 days which makes phys % complete less valuable also.

Member for

16 years 3 months

you can track physical % complete which is what EVMS uses and you cand use the physical % complete to uppdate the duration % complete by running a global change

global change

where physical % complete is greather than 0 

then duration % complete = physcial % complete

Member for

21 years

I tried to make a bullet point list in my comment where Remaining Duration, Reamaing effort, and Earned value were on separate lines. Planning Planett has the most incomprehensible comment writing software in the known universe,

Member for

21 years

Gosh, John, Most of my cients use Physical % complete.

If you want to monitor:

Remaining duration
Remaining effort,
Earned Value,

Independently, you have no choice, you must use Physical % complete.

Duration % complete is (IMNVHO) for lazy asset owners, who don't want to look to closely at what is going on in the project, and probably do not record Actual Hours Expended to analyse productivity.