The duration or work value changed unexpectedly when I assigned a resource

Symptoms

When you assign a resource to a task, the duration or work value changes automatically.

Cause

The duration, work, and resource assignments for a task are interlinked. When you assign a resource to a task, Microsoft Office Project will decrease or increase either the task's duration value or its work value, based on the task type.

Task type behavior is described in the following table.

In a	If you revise units	If you revise duration	If you revise work
Fixed units task	Duration is recalculated.	Work is recalculated.	Duration is recalculated.
Fixed work task	Duration is recalculated.	Units are recalculated.	Duration is recalculated.
Fixed duration task	Work is recalculated.	Work is recalculated.	Units are recalculated.

By default, when a new resource is assigned to a task that already has assigned resources and planned work, Project decreases the task's duration. With more work resources contributing to the task, the task should take less time. This is called effort-driven scheduling.

When you assign an additional resource to a fixed-duration task that already has assigned resources and that uses effort-driven scheduling, Project adjusts the work values. If a task must take a specified amount of time, and if you add another resource to that task, each resource will be assigned less of the total work.

Resolution

You can change this behavior to more accurately reflect how a particular task is affected when resources are added or removed. For example, you might want to see the total work increasing as you add more people to a particular task, or you might want to change the task type.

Change a task's scheduling options

1. On the View menu, click Gantt Chart.

2. Click the task that you want to change.

3. Click Task Information , and then click the Advanced tab.

4. In the Task type list, click the task type that you want to change.

5. If you want to show the increase in total work for the task, clear the Effort driven check box.

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