ITBM: Which actuals are the most actual?

[Uncle Rob]

ON ACTUALS

TL/DR?  "When actually actualizing your actual actuals, which actuals are actually the most actual actuals?" 

Just because a field says "actual" doesn't mean that's the actual actual the customer is interested in.
Best example is on Resource Management which has an "actual" count for hours and price.  The ONLY reason this is handy is to determine if your original estimates are accurate or not.  Don't ever confuse this with concepts like Actual Cost on cost plans, or actual start / finish on project tasks.

Consider
Resource Actuals:  Good for seeing if our resource estimates were accurate.  Helps us get better (maybe) at resource estimation

Cost Plan Actuals:  Helps us understand how far we from our estimated costs.  Helps us get better at cost estimation and also identify where we're over budget in flight.

Cost Plan Breakdown Actuals:  Helps us understand our burn rate on cost estimates.  Are we spending faster than we planned.

Planned Duration vs Actual Duration:  Helps us understand if the project task itself is more or less than the time planned.  This is a different conversation than the resource actuals, since resource plans are more abstract than project tasks.

Understand your actuals and what they're actually there for!

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