A weird way for weight value calculation

03 Nov A weird way for weight value calculation

Most often, when discussions are held regarding weight value and basis for calculations, man-hours and cost comes to the project control professional’s minds. Also, we know on some Projects; Duration of the activities gets used due to lack of info or incompetency of the practitioners. But it seems, there is another way as well which is very weird and seems popular on some Projects.

This practise is done in 2 ways:

1. The planner copies the schedule into an Excel file. He/she assumes a large number (like 100,000) that has no base nor justification. The number is like overall project budgeted units or cost. Then, the planner distributes the large number among the WBS and activities. and calculates the weight values based on the distributed numbers, same as table below.

2. To make the baseless weight value legitimate, the planner comes with a trick. He/ she uses the duration of the WBS/activities to calculate the weight values. Then multiples the calculated weight values in 100,000. By doing this, he/she generates a number for each WBS/activity which then gets presented as budgeted man-hours as the following table illustrates?!

This is called progress measurement system and the results get reported to management every week/ month. So, what will happen to the Projects with such a system? They are doomed to fail.

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