Gantt Charts

10 Key excerpts on "Gantt Charts"

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  Construction Planning NQF4 SB

  TVET FIRST

  • Sparrow Consulting(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  A Gantt chart is a graphic representation of project activities plotted against the time allowed for each activity. 125 Module 8: Perform appropriate scheduling and allocate resources The Gantt or bar chart consists of a series of columns and rows that are used to plan a project’s activities. The bar chart shows the scheduled activities, their important (start and finish) dates and duration. Figure 8.1 is a bar chart for a project that has nine activities. The activities are listed along the vertical axis; these can be named for easier reading if required, for example, delivery of building materials, foundations, etc. The horizontal axis shows how long the project has been running in days. An extra vertical line can be drawn on the chart to highlight the current time or a specific time if this is important. Bar charts are especially helpful when an update is needed on the current progress of a project and how the activities are being scheduled. Figure 8.1: A bar chart for a project with nine activities Agreed starting date This is the date work will start as agreed by both parties in the contract. Sometimes the contract can have its own starting date;, this is common in the GCC contract (refer back to topic 3 for more on contracts). In the GCC (2004) contract, a difference is made between the start of the contract (referred to as the commencement of the contract) and the starting date of work (referred to as the commencement of work). The start of work can only happen once both parties agree on a starting date for the contract. This can be the 126 Module 8: Perform appropriate scheduling and allocate resources same date but often engineers will wait for a certain period of time after the commencement of the contract before beginning their work. This is usually 1-2 weeks or a month. Setting this period of time allows the engineer to ensure that the contractor produces all the relevant paperwork before on-site work begins.

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  The Project Manager's Communication Toolkit

  • Shankar Jha(Author)
  • 2010(Publication Date)
  • CRC Press

    (Publisher)

  When is the entire work expected to finish? Depending on the needs of the stakeholder, the Gantt chart can be customized to present only that information which is needed by the stakeholder. Customizing the view is very easy in a Gantt chart if you are preparing it with the help of MS Project. Project managers can use the Gantt chart for the purpose of analyzing the effect of various parameters affecting the project schedule. They can change the resource assignments, predecessor, successor, float, etc. to find out how the overall schedule is impacted. This analysis can help in decision making by finding alternatives to resolve resource conflicts and other project problems. These kinds of changes can be made in the Gantt chart on-the-fly to determine the overall effect. Some real-life examples are discussed later in this chapter to illustrate the commu-nication power and effectiveness of a Gantt chart. In a Gantt chart, each task or activity takes up one row. Dates go along the top in increments of days, weeks, months, or quarter, depending on the total length of the project. The expected time for each task is represented by a horizontal bar, where the left end marks the expected start date of the task and right end marks Charts, Graphs, and Diagrams ◾ 87 the expected finish date. These task elements (detail and summary) comprise the work breakdown structure of the project. Tasks may run sequentially, in parallel, or overlapping. So, Gantt Charts can also be used to show the dependency (i.e., pre-cedence network) relationships between activities. Dependency gives an idea about the order in which tasks need to be executed. Gantt Charts can be used in many different ways to provide information on various details. The first time it is plotted in the planning process that represents the timing of major tasks required to complete a project and the order in which they should be executed.

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  Leading IT Projects

  The IT Manager's Guide

  • Jessica Keyes(Author)
  • 2008(Publication Date)
  • Auerbach Publications

    (Publisher)

  It is widely used outside of the information technology department as all business processes are task based. Figure 7.4 is an example of a typical Gantt chart as created by Microsoft Project. Note that it is a chart with two dimensions: tasks and time. Gantt Charts are easy to understand: 1. Tasks are listed on the vertical dimension. 2. Time is shown on the horizontal dimension using a bar whose length signifies the time it will take to complete the task. In our example, the name of the person assigned to the task is located at the end of the bar. Aside from Microsoft Project, there are a variety of other diagramming tools that enable the PM to create a Gantt chart. One of these is Microsoft Visio. Project Scheduling n 101 Task Name ID 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 Meetings Number of versions February March 2/3 2/10 2/17 2/24 3/3 3/10 3/17 3/24 3/31 4/7 4/14 4/21 4/28 5/5 5/12 5/19 5/26 April May Hardware analysis Language specification Select database Define functions Demonstrating system Define activities Define responsible person Define Schedule Assess non-functional requirements Final requirements specification Quality management Structure of quality system Project plan Requirements documents Design documents User guide Final project notebook Maintenance plan Java Script training ASP VB Script training Database training Requirements Assess functional requirements Jason Jason Jason Kristina Kristina, Susan Jason, Susan, Kristina Jason, Susan, Kristina Susan Susan, Kristina 3/8 Susan Evaluation of testing needs Quality assurance plan Programmer Training Web design training Documentation Jason Jason Jason Jason Figure 7.4 Gantt chart as created by Microsoft Project. 102 n Leading IT Projects: The IT Manager’s Guide Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) PERT was developed by the U.S. military for use on the U.S. Navy’s Polaris nuclear submarine proj-ect.

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  Project Management

  Principles, Practice and Scheduling

  • Herman Steyn(Author)
  • 2023(Publication Date)
  • Funda Project Management

    (Publisher)

   It indicates which activities should be monitored closely to prevent the project from being late.  It ensures realistic workloads on all resources. Without project schedules it is not possible for an individual (or for his or her functional manager) to manage his or her workload.  A project schedule is necessary to determine the cash flow (the amount of money that the project requires at every stage).  Scheduling performed as a team effort creates buy-in from team members and other stakeholders. Project scheduling is the first essential component of project time management, a term that includes both scheduling and control to ensure that the work is performed according to the schedule. Without a schedule, progress cannot be controlled. 6.2 Gantt Charts Gantt Charts (sometimes called “bar charts”) are the simplest and most common way of presenting project plans. The Gantt chart is therefore discussed in this chapter before other tools that can be used to create the Gantt chart. A Gantt chart typically shows a list of activities and for each activity a bar that indicates the start and end dates of the activity, as shown in Figure 6.1. Activities with a short duration could be indicated by means of a triangle or a diamond. Such activities are called events. Milestones that indicate the end of a project phase are indicated in a similar way. Gantt Charts are often used to indicate progress. This will be discussed in Chapter 8. Project Management 108 Figure 6.1 Example of a Gantt chart (Created by means of MSProject) During project execution, even well thought through plans often do need to be changed. Because computerised project planning systems facilitate the updating of plans, it is normally fairly easy to update the plans; the more difficult part is to get the acceptance for the new plan from all stakeholders. It is important to keep record of all original and revised plans.

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  Planning and Managing Scientific Research

  A guide for the beginning researcher

  • Brian Kennett(Author)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • ANU Press

    (Publisher)

  This enables the time sequence to be refined so that the most effective use is Figure 3.2: Work framework including time relations for the multi-strand project shown in Figure 3.1. 43 How to Plan and Manage a Project made of resources. It is at this stage that you can often begin to recognise the critical path for the project representing the time-limiting steps. 3.3.3 Gantt Charts and critical paths Gantt Charts provide an oversight of a project in the form of a calendar view, that allows the sequence and duration of the different tasks to be appreciated. They are a good tool to work out and display the minimum time required for a project, and which tasks need to be completed before others can start. A Gantt chart also helps with recognising the critical path – the sequence of tasks that have to be completed on time if the whole project is to meet the final deadline. The Gantt chart provides an easy-to-read representation of the project at any point and can be used to monitor progress against the plan. In particular the chart enables one to see how project milestones link to the project components. However, if there is a need for change, it can be difficult to assess from a static chart the impact of what happens in one area on the rest of the project. Most Gantt Charts are now produced using computer software and so it is possible to adjust the parameters and see what happens. It is, of course, desirable to work on a copy rather than overwrite the main description of a project! Although simple Gantt Charts can be constructed using a spreadsheet, considerable flexibility can be achieved by using specific software. A number of different styles of program are available, with varying levels of sophistication. For typical scientific projects the full power of major commercial software is rarely required.

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  Managing Difficult Projects

  • Andre Costin(Author)
  • 2008(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  No formal logical and arithmetic relationship between activities was proposed by Mr. Gantt. This comes later with invention of network scheduling techniques. Nevertheless, the visually pleasing aspect of a Gantt chart is a compelling feature which has made its use persist to the present day. The Gantt chart allows users to assimilate work plans at a glance without being lost in details. This is very important in frequent and expensive project meetings where managers and experts are assembled to solve problems and to agree on priorities. Enhanced Gantt Charts, which either show or embed relationships between activities without showing them, have become the standard graphical display in modern scheduling software programs (e.g. see Fig. 7.10). Three core attributes of contemporary scheduling Modern planning and scheduling techniques, or simply “scheduling”, involve modelling the future of a project. The model combines the three attributes of a network construct, the subject matter expertise and schedule computations. Each attribute makes a critical contribution to successful scheduling. The terms “planning and scheduling” and just plain “scheduling” are used interchangeably. But, the word planning by itself doesn't have precise meaning. It can mean scheduling. But, planning can also refer to the process of defining a project, or it can refer to the establishment of a project structure or it can mean forecasting manpower. Too vague, we avoid using the term planning by itself. However, bending to common usage, we do use the term “planner” to depict the one who develops a schedule. The planner can be a manager or a professional or a contractor who is faced with the task of defining the work to be done. A network construct comprises an array of planned activities or events 1 on a project, charted as arrows and nodes. The tail of the arrow originates with the predecessor node(s) (activity(ies) or event(s)) and the point of the arrow ends with the successor node(s)

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  Project Management Concepts, Methods, and Techniques

  • Claude H. Maley(Author)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Auerbach Publications

    (Publisher)

  It answers the question “When in time will an activity be performed?” The activities are the work packages used in building the activity network, plus any hammock activities created dur-ing that process. Gantt Charts can also illustrate the summary elements of a project as described in the work breakdown structure of the project. Milestone events can also be shown on these charts. The Gantt chart has to be built in alignment to, and in consideration of, the civil and corporate calendars and the corresponding legal work-day hours, so as to have a valid realistic value. It will show the activities’ earliest start and finish times (or conversely the latest start and finish times) in real dates, and no longer in absolute terms as was the case during the activity network step. Gantt Charts are the outputs of the planning and scheduling phase. They are the most-used graphic representations in projects. A common error is to build the Gantt chart by attempting to define the project work break-down structure at the same time as defining the schedule and relationship of activities. This practice makes it very difficult to follow the 100 percent rule. The Gantt chart can only be produced after the scope of work, work breakdown structure, activity estimation, and activity network have been built and verified—these are the inputs . Obviously, this is the appropriate time to use project management soft-ware, as the amount of available project planning data will be cumber-some to manage manually. ID Task Name Duration January February 28/12 04/01 11/01 18/01 25/01 01/02 08/02 15/02 22/02 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Start Define Test Requirements Establish Test Location Prepare Test Location Define Test Controls Write Test Plans Prepare Test Bed Equipment Installation Integration Testing Acceptance Testing 6 Days 3 Days 8 Days 7 Days 5 Days 10 Days 8 Days 6 Days 8 Days Finish 0 Days 0 Days FIGURE 4.27 The Gantt chart

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  Planning and Design of Engineering Systems

  • Graeme Dandy, Trevor Daniell, Bernadette Foley, Robert Warner(Authors)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • CRC Press

    (Publisher)

  One of the first modern scheduling techniques developed to assist in project planning was the Gantt Chart. This was created in 1917 by Henry Laurence Gantt (1861–1919), an American mechanical engineer. The first Gantt Chart was developed for planning the building of ships during World War I. A Gantt Chart is a graph in which the horizontal axis represents time. All activities are listed down the page with each activity having a horizontal bar representing the planned timing of its completion. Gantt Charts can have varying levels of complexity and are discussed in Section 5.4. In the late 1950s several techniques were developed to assist in the planning of complex projects. These include the critical path method (CPM) and the program evaluation and review technique (PERT). CPM was developed in the late 1950s by Morgan Walker of E.I. Du Pont and James E Kelly of Remington Rand Univac Corporation and was first used to schedule maintenance shutdowns in chemical processing plants. PERT was developed by Booz, Allen & Hamilton and the US Navy with the aim of coordinating the many thousands of contractors who were working on the Polaris missile program (Griffis and Farr, 2000; Shtub et al. 2005). Both techniques use a network of arrows and nodes to represent the activities in a project. Calculations can then be carried out to determine important information, such as that listed in Section 5.1. The basic difference between the two techniques is that CPM assumes that the durations of all activities are known, whereas PERT represents the durations of activities as random variables with optimistic, pessimistic and most likely estimates of their durations. In the 1980s, Gantt Charts were modified to include links between tasks so that they could also include certain attributes of CPM. This chapter contains a description of CPM and Gantt Charts.

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  Project Management, Third Edition

  A Practical Approach

  • Roel Grit(Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)
• First, read through this section. The basic terminology is explained here.
• Follow the “Getting started” or “Quick preview” instructions of your software’s “Help” section.
• Make a simple Gantt chart. Fig. 4.7 shows a screen print of such a chart. This one was made with MS Project.
• Examples of schedules are usually given in planning software. These should be studied carefully.
• Make ample use of the “Help” section of the software. Carefully read the text balloons that appear when you let your cursor rest on an item for a while.
• Double-clicking and using the right-hand mouse button often brings up useful functions and possibilities. Take time to explore the possibilities of the program. Look at the menu screens and try and master the program in this way.
Buying a program handbook or doing a course to become more familiar with the planning software are other options. If you have to plan regularly, this is highly recommended.
Figure 4.7 Screen print of a Gantt Chart
The “Mini course on MS Project” can be downloaded from the website accompanying this book. If you do not have MS Project, the “Planning” spreadsheet model can be downloaded for use in creating a simple Gantt chart.

Levels of planning programs

Planning software can be used to make a plan or a schedule on various levels:

• As a drawing kit for a network diagram (PERT chart) and attractive Gantt chart. The result is a graphic representation of the activities or tasks to be carried out and inter-dependencies of the tasks. The graphic representations can be used during consultations with the sponsor. A computer-drawn Gantt chart can be added to your project plan.
• For assigning or allocating activities to persons and resources. You can then use the program to show your staff when they will be called upon to do certain tasks.
• For recording the activities that have been completed. By introducing the finished and partly finished activities into the program you can monitor the progress of the project. Is everything still on track; how far are we behind? You could indicate in the planning software what percentage of each task has been completed.