Planning And Scheduling Of Projects - Gant Charts
What is a Carta De Gant?
A Gant chart is an excellent instrument in the hands of managers who hope to visualize, plan, and monitor planned and true progress of projects. Its graphical style enables upper management and non-managers alike to straightforwardly recognize the flow of a project, without requiring a full training session for project timeline management.
Each occasion we, in our project administration careers, ensure the rigmarole
of our projects, hoping
to accomplish and improve
upon the self-set milestones,
a silent thought of thank
goes beyond to Henry Gant for innovating
this easy-to-use device for charting project plans, for the timeline permits us to succeed in
this chosen career.
schedule Sample
Background
 |
| Mr. Gant |
Henry Gant (1861-1919) was management consultant.
Henry Gant devised [Gant diagrams] in the 1910's.
A long time ago, Graphicas de Gant were very innovative and unique.
Huge construction projects like like the Hoover Dam and the Eisenhower National Defense Interstate Highway System necessitated a tool such as the Gant diagram,
Now, a staple project planning tool and buzzword in the repertoire of modern project timeline management tools today, timelines are routinely deployed in the
by managers, planners, and system developers.
Working on projects without them is unthinkable, except in the rare case when the inherent nature of the work does not require them.
The schedule has attained world-wide renown,
known in French as diagramme de Gant and Spanish as carta Gant, graficas de Gant, and diagrama de Gant],
indeed the whole world speaks this common language of
project representation.
Henry Gant's global contribution to the modern project management is honored today through the Henry Gant Medal.
This medal, established in 1929, is awarded for distinguished achievement in management and service to the community.
Practical Application
So, how does someone use a project timeline? These charts are generally introduced during the planning and scheduling stages of projects.
A visual tool, the charts allow us to obtain a bird's eye view of the project in its totality.
From beginning to the end, the charts force us to:
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Make a realistic assessment of the end-time of the project.
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Align the work (or phases or activities) - one after the other, as well as at the same time.
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Think in terms of task dependencies - which task is dependent on what.
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Concentrate on the necessary resources, both when and where, throughout the run of the project.
Once the project timeline charts are completed, and project execution begins, we start comparing our actual, ground-level performance against what was planned.
This comparison is possible by checking the field reports against the project timeline charts.
Thus, we get to benefit from them in two immediate ways:
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To control work in progress. At the minimum, a percentage of completion can
be worked out, by taking a snapshot of the progress "right-now", and comparing
it with the chart, for the "right-now" point of time. If there are any slip-ups
in terms of time or cost, we are forced to question our optimism (or hope?)
that the tasks would get completed earlier then they actually did, at the
planning stage. This introspection helps in more realistic planning for a now
more matured manager in their future projects.
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To also think in terms of speeding up future tasks, while there is still time,
to redeem the total project's deadline. Perhaps resources (better manpower,
more funds, or additional material) need to be allocated much in advance for a
task that is going to be initiated later down the line? Perhaps some tasks may
be rescheduled in a more efficient manner, in order to meet some unforeseen
contingencies that have occurred after the project started?
How to draw a Graphica de Gant
A Gant Chart, after all this ruckus, is just a chart with rows and columns.
One simply writes all the tasks, one below the other, so that each task occupies a single row.
Alongside the names, columns are drawn to indicate the dates.
The dates may be in increments of days, weeks or months.
Depending on the total length of the project, we may decide the granularity of the date increments which is appropriate - days, weeks or months.
Now, for each task in a row, we draw a horizontal (preferably hollow) bar alongside, with its start point in the column representing the date when it is scheduled to begin, and the end point in the column of the date when it is
expected to end.
Once these horizontal bars are drawn, we step back and get to observe the tasks that are going to run sequentially, in parallel, or overlap.
As soon as the project has commenced, program managers just fill in the hollow bars to a length that is in proportion to the fraction of the work that has
been completed, for every task. In order to judge where we stand on any given
date - say today, we can draw an imaginary vertical line through the chart at
the current date - this is a "snapshot line". The tasks that are supposed to
have completed fully shall be to the left of this snapshot line. If they are
indeed completed, their hollow bars shall have been completely filled. Partial
filling indicates slip-ups. Tasks that are crossing the snapshot line are
current tasks in hand; well, at the least they are tasks that were scheduled to
have begun before today. If the horizontal bar on such tasks is filled in to
the left of the line, then the current tasks are behind schedule; if they are
filled in to the right of the line, then they are ahead of schedule. Future
tasks, of course, will lie completely on the right of the snapshot line.
Complicated Gants
The aforementioned description is about simple efforts.
Ideally, tasks in a simple project would not go beyond a single page, which makes them manageable.
Often, and especially in complex projects, each task may be broken into smaller and more easily manageable subtasks.
These subtasks may be moved to subordinate charts, with their own timelines.
In management terminology, the process - of breaking up of these tasks into independent unit-tasks that can be completed on their own - has been given an exotic name of WBS.
The WBS enables the project coordinator's mind to grasp the project in its entirety as well as to think in terms of allocating resources, assign responsibilities, and measure and control the project, for every task and sub-task.
Further, in team-oriented projects, where each task is to be handled by
different personnel, there might be an additional column against each task,
where initials of these personnel may be entered, to identify who is supposed
to be doing what.
Project Milestones
Delivering milestones are occasions for celebration, to pop the champagne.
Such accomplishments help to boost the morale of personnel involved in making the project a success.
If the project plan is drawn up along with suitable (and achievable!) milestones, by using some special symbol such as brightly-colored diamonds, and the chart is kept in some centrally visible place, it would motivate all the
people to achieve them.
These milestones could range from perhaps the approval of project design by the customer, or completion of project prototype, to delivery of individual modules by different teams.
Conclusion
Since Henry Gant guided us toward enlightenment, quite a library of books about management have been authored on project management.
Indeed, Project Management is a full-fledged discipline in itself, deserving of a separate academic degree for those who pursue it as a career and profession.
More powerful models have evolved in the past few decades, which strive to capture the complexity of human endeavor and track and monitor its progress.
The project schedule continues to be used in some avatar or the other in all such models.
And for simple projects, The project timeline is the solution.
A Gant Diagram is a graphical portrayal of tasks as divisions of work across time. It helps planing and supervision of project development and resource distribution. the left part of the Gant Diagram flows a line with the work breakdown structure (essentially, a list of tasks). The chart component presents time progression, denote either in relative or absolute time.
In a Gant, each work item fills one row. Dates are provided across the horizontal axis, staggered as suitable to the size of the Gant at hand. Rows of bars in the Gant Diagram present the start and ending dates of every piece of effort in the project. Work could appear at the same time, one after the other, or stagger.
Practically every project planning and scheduling software (like ProjectHand) facilitates project management with Gant diagram representation of project workflow.
These software packages deliver a number of tools for managers to start, track and report projects.
Sample Gant Diagram
Gant Diagram History
The Gant Diagram was invented by Henry Gant, an American engineer, in 1917.
Henry L. Gant devised the prototype of the Gant diagram tp around World War I.
His tool became so powerful and useful that it has not changed for practically a century.
It was only in the 1990's when Gant Charts were improved to have linkage lines between tasks.
Tip drawing Gant Charts:
On bigger projects, tasks with a number of internal subtasks can be divided into constituent Gant Charts to enhance usefulness.
