{"id":12,"date":"2011-03-20T22:45:31","date_gmt":"2011-03-20T22:45:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/shaundicker.com\/blog\/?p=12"},"modified":"2024-01-06T15:16:34","modified_gmt":"2024-01-06T13:16:34","slug":"what-is-the-difference-between-duration-work-effort-hours-and-man-days","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shaundicker.com\/blog\/what-is-the-difference-between-duration-work-effort-hours-and-man-days\/","title":{"rendered":"What is the difference between duration, work, effort, hours, and man-days?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>I come from the Microsoft Project world, where schedules are built using duration and work. However, team members often refer to effort, hours, or my pet peeve &#8220;man-days&#8221;. What are all of these, and how do they compare?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My nonprofessional definitions are summarized as follows, with examples below:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Duration <\/strong>&#8211; the amount of time it takes to complete a task. Measured in days, from task start to task end. Can also be referred to as calendar time.<\/li><li><strong>Work <\/strong>&#8211; the amount of hours it takes to complete a task. Measured in hours, from task start to task end.<\/li><li><strong>Effort <\/strong>&#8211; the same as work if you&#8217;re talking about hours. Technically, effort is a % allocation of your &#8220;focus&#8221; on a task.<\/li><li><strong>Hours <\/strong>&#8211; the same as work.<\/li><li><strong>Man-days<\/strong> &#8211; the same as work, but expressed in days instead of hours.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>To illustrate, we will use a simple example: We need to build a wall.<\/p>\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"example-1-duration\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Example 1: Duration<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n<p>The wall will take one builder 10 working days to build. In Microsoft Project, this would be represented as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/shaundicker.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/704C7530D8486324_211_0.png?ssl=1\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"578\" height=\"56\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/shaundicker.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/704C7530D8486324_211_0.png?resize=578%2C56&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-15\" title=\"duration\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/shaundicker.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/704C7530D8486324_211_0.png?w=578&amp;ssl=1 578w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/shaundicker.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/704C7530D8486324_211_0.png?resize=300%2C29&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 578px) 100vw, 578px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Duration is 10 days<\/li><li>Work is 80 hours (Assuming the builder works 8 hours a day, that&#8217;s 10 x 8 = 80 hours)<\/li><li>Effort is 80 hours<\/li><li>Hours is 80 hours<\/li><li>Man-days is 10 days. Be careful! Man-days is not the same as duration. See the next example.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"example-2-mandays\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Example 2: Man-days<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n<p>The same wall will take two builders 5 working days to build.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/shaundicker.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/704C7530D8486324_211_1.png?ssl=1\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"578\" height=\"56\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/shaundicker.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/704C7530D8486324_211_1.png?resize=578%2C56&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-16\" title=\"man-days\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/shaundicker.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/704C7530D8486324_211_1.png?w=578&amp;ssl=1 578w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/shaundicker.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/704C7530D8486324_211_1.png?resize=300%2C29&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 578px) 100vw, 578px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Duration is 5 days<\/li><li>Work is still 80 hours (2 builders, each working 8 hours a day for 5 days)<\/li><li>Effort is 80 hours<\/li><li>Hours is 80 hours<\/li><li>Man-days is 10 days<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"example-3\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Example 3:<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n<p>We have two builders, but the client will only allow us to work for 4 hours in the mornings. After that, we need to leave the building site. The same wall will take the two builders 10 working days to build.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/shaundicker.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/704C7530D8486324_211_2.png?ssl=1\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"711\" height=\"56\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/shaundicker.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/704C7530D8486324_211_2.png?resize=711%2C56&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-17\" title=\"duration_10days\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/shaundicker.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/704C7530D8486324_211_2.png?w=711&amp;ssl=1 711w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/shaundicker.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/704C7530D8486324_211_2.png?resize=300%2C23&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 711px) 100vw, 711px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Duration is 10 days<\/li><li>Work is still 80 hours (2 builders, each working 4 hours a day for 10 days)<\/li><li>Effort is 80 hours<\/li><li>Hours is 80 hours<\/li><li>Man-days is 10 days<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>In Summary:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When team members start using non-standard terminology, make sure that you understand exactly what they mean. Work is the only reliable source when quoting customers on a time and materials basis, as in the examples above. Work remained at 80 hours regardless of how the work was resourced. Wherever possible, I always refer to Duration and Work. These are two &#8220;standards&#8221; that most other Microsoft Project users will be familiar with. Leave a comment and let me know if you found this helpful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I come from the Microsoft Project world, where schedules are built using duration and work. However, team members often refer to effort, hours, or my pet peeve &#8220;man-days&#8221;. What are all of these, and how do they compare? My nonprofessional definitions are summarized as follows, with examples below: Duration &#8211; the amount of time it [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7414,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"single-with-sidebar","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[43,97],"tags":[7,9,10,11,6,8],"class_list":["post-12","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-microsoft-project","category-project-management","tag-duration","tag-effort","tag-hours","tag-man-days","tag-scheduling-2","tag-work"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/shaundicker.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/144714734119193-Time2.jpg?fit=610%2C354&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1rSVq-c","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shaundicker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shaundicker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shaundicker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shaundicker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shaundicker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/shaundicker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7415,"href":"https:\/\/shaundicker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12\/revisions\/7415"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shaundicker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shaundicker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shaundicker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shaundicker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}