Total, Average Time and Time Percentage Spent on Different Project Phases

Total, Average Time and Time Percentage Spent on Different Project Phases

Total, Average Time and Time Percentage Spent on Different Project Phases is a project management KPI that shows the total and average duration of each project phase and the ratio of particular phase duration of a project to the total time spent on a project.  Project is usually split into several key stages: Definition, Initiation, Planning, Execution, Monitoring, Control and Closing.  Your project may have different processes within these key stages. Let’s take software development project to show how to define time spent on each project phase. Software development project may follow different software development models. One of software development models is Waterfall Model or System Development Life Cycle (SDLC). Using this model your project may consist of the following phases:

• Requirement Specification
• Analysis and Design
• Code Generation
• Testing
• Maintenance

To calculate and display time spent on phases of you project you can create a task group for each phase.



To calculate Total and Average Time spent on project phases please follow the steps below:

• Add custom field “Phase Duration”



Add tasks to corresponding task group/phase. If you add the duration of each task in the custom field “Phase Duration” the program will automatically calculate total or average amount of hours per each task group/phase the task belongs to. 

• On Task Tree select the parent task group and select “Custom fields options”



• Set the following custom fields settings for the custom field: “Phase Duration”
  • In “Settings for” select ”Subgroups&tasks
  • select “Enable”
  • to display the total number of hours spent on project phase select “Sum” and the custom field name “Phase Duration”



• to display the average number of hours spent on project phase select “Average” and the custom field name “Phase Duration”



• Select task group/phase for which you need to calculate total or average time spent, right click and select the option “Custom fields options”
  • In “Settings for” select ”Subgroups&tasks
  • Select “Enable by Parent”



Note: To enter the value of the custom field “Phase Duration” per task group/phase you need to right click on task group with project tasks, select “Custom fields options” and select “Edit”



To enter the value for the custom field right click on task group and select “Edit”



To calculate Time Percentage spent on each phase of your project please follow the steps below:

• Add custom field “Phase Duration” with code “cf_phase_duration”



• Add custom field “Total Project Duration” with code “cf_total_project_duration”



This custom field is used for task groups/phases only.

• Add custom field “Phase Time %” with the formula:

($cf_phase_duration / $cf_total_project_duration)* 100



• On Task Tree select the root task group and select “Custom fields options”



• Set the following custom fields settings for the custom field “Phase Duration”
  • In “Settings for” select ”Subgroups&tasks
  • select “Enable”
  • select “Aggregated”, select “Sum” and custom field name “Phase Duration”



• Set the following custom fields settings for the custom field “Phase Time %”
  • In “Settings for” select ”Subgroups&tasks
  • select “Enable”
  • select “Calculated by custom field formula (for task group)”



• Select task group/phase for which you need to calculate Time Percentage spent on project phase, right click, select the option “Custom fields options” and set the following options for the custom fields “Phase Duration” and “Phase Time %”
  • In “Settings for” select ”Subgroups&tasks
  • Select “Enable by Parent”





• To enter the value of the custom field “Total Project Duration” all task groups right click on root task group, select “Custom fields options” and select “Edit”





Total Time Spent on Different Project Phases



Average Time Spent on Different Project Phases



Time Percentage Spent on Different Project Phases