Throughout this year in my Capstone class, the use of a Gantt chart has helped my group and I tremendously in keeping track of our progress. It is easy for us to know which aspects of the project are dependent on which other aspects, what milestones we need to hit, where we are in terms of progress (whether we're on track, ahead of schedule, or falling behind). It also allows us to know who is in charge of which aspect as well as the projected end date of the project. When making the chart itself, it is important to consider the research, acquisition, and testing of all components of the product, as well as testing of the product as a whole. Each of these parts should have an ample amount of time to finish in order to ensure as much success as possible.
A Gantt chart is essential for staying on track and getting the project done in a timely manner. I can tell you from experience that working with companies that don't set out a timeline or set clear goals, work is slow and not very productive. It is also essential to come up with a “contingency plan” in order to be able to complete the task on time without having to miss the scheduled deadline in the gantt chart. This is a safety net so that you don't get off track. From my experience in Capstone project, my group had some setbacks due to the slow progress of the design development, nevertheless we worked together with a contingency plan that allowed us to complete the project as scheduled in the Gantt chart.
While working for industry, a gantt chart is a very powerful tool to lay down hard deadlines and the structure of a project. Tasks and sub-tasks are to be laid out and an estimate of how much time each of these will take. The resources that will be assigned to each task will be noted in the chart as well. Even though this seems like a very great idea to make hard deadlines, those hard deadlines are usually never met. Throughout my experience working with gantt charts, there will always be some unexpected circumstance where a task has to be completely started over from scratch or just the task hit a dead end and requires a different approach. This ultimately delays the deadline on the gantt chart and it happens very frequently.
In my opinion it will be beneficial if a particular pattern is followed while making a Gantt chart. Having the dates displayed right at the top for individual tasks apart for the entire project start/end date, while having the tasks listed along the left side column. While considering the time frames make sure to account for holidays and any unexpected delays due to task being dependent on another task and also taking into account that the employees can be sick. Milestones completion must be noted in the Gantt chart to allow a sense of satisfaction and forward motion. Showing the dependency of tasks is essential. The assignee of the task should be mentioned on the chart and the progress made should be noted each day. Have a meeting with the team everyday to determine the progress is important to know where everyone stands and the project in all.
Gantt Chart gives an idea of all the tasks that are needed to complete and project or a part of a project within a particular time frame considering the working hours, sick leave, time required for procurement of material from the vendor, etc. At the same time, the Gantt chart gives us an idea of which task is dependant on the other, considering all these factors a Gantt chart is prepared and is followed to complete the project in regards to the time in the Gantt chart.
From my experience working on a Gantt Chart, the most important thing to consider is the relationship between tasks. Many tasks depend on other tasks completion before they can be finished, or even started. This is a crucial aspect of the Gantt Chart, because if one major relationship between tasks is missed, and as a result, three essential operations of the development process cannot begin until months later than planned because they are waiting on, for example the DID to be completed, it can derail the entire project. Additionally, things go wrong, there is no way to perfectly predict how long every project in the development process over years will take down to the day. So because of this, there needs to be slack built into the deadlines on the Gantt chart where possible.
I don't have any industry experience, but I have some ideas about creating Gantt charts. In my opinion, first of all, we need to have a clear purpose. When making Gantt chart, it needs to be concise and clear. Adding milestones appropriately can help highlight important tasks over time. At the same time, the use of color, or sorting to divide the status of the characters can also help to complete the Gantt chart.
Gantt charts are extremely helpful in Industry. This resource allows the team to lay out a specified timeline of objectives and the resources that are allocated to each of the objectives. This is a very powerful tool which allows the user to plan the whole project out in the first few days of the project. The only issues that I have noticed with Gantt charts is that they are always changing due to sudden changes in the project. There will always be errors in the devices, sudden abruptions in testing, loss of resources, or basically any events that move away from the initial planned gantt chart. Nonetheless, the gantt chart can always be changed directly after the incidence of change which makes it such a great tool since it will always be open to change.
Gantt chart has a list of tasks, this tasks performed on the vertical axis, and time intervals on the horizontal axis. The width of the horizontal bars in the graph shows the duration of each activity. A Gantt chart can be used to produce an accurate timescale for the project and also can show break down the structure, show team members how their work relates to other, create a schedule of work a day to day basis throughout the entire duration. A milestone is an important goal date in the project such as a task completion date.
I believe gantt chart requires estimated timeline of the project, phases of the project, how each phase is related to each other, and members who would be working on each phase. Gantt chart lays out the roles and deadlines that need to be met by each member nicely so everyone stays on the same page and if something unexpected happens and you are ahead of the project or behind you can always revise the chart. I believe Microsoft project is a nice tool which can be used to make gantt chart.
Although I have not had the opportunity to prepare a Gantt Chart for the company I work at in industry, I did have to include this in my senior design capstone proposal and got a brief introduction into what should be considered when making one. I agree with the importance of the factors in the initial post, and because this chart is based off time and project task durations, I would like to add the following items to consider when preparing this: account for delays, re-evaluation of project plans, or basically bumps that could arise along the way. An indirect way of doing this would be in the accuracy of estimated times of each task. In an industry setting, there could be pressure from management to make the estimated durations as short as possible, but it is very important to provide a reasonable estimate so it does not throw off the timeline of the entire project, which would also not look good to management. The more you can use the Gantt Chart as a tool for foreseeable issues/delays , and have a plan to address prior to the predicted occurrence, the better. In addition, the Gantt Chart is a living document and should be re-evaluated and kept up with through out the project to accurately depict how the project is moving along.
From my experience in industry I would echo everyone who has said that you need to consider delays/setbacks and build that into your timeline. I worked on one particular project that had a very ambitious timeline with little to no room for error. As a result everything felt rushed and people were working crazy hours to try to complete things on time. The unexpected tends to happen. We experienced some setbacks when we found certain issues with the equipment that were causing failing test results. We were able to fix it in record time however as mentioned before this was not originally built into the timeline and we experienced serious setbacks.
Additionally, all items should be built into the gantt chart from the very beginning of the project. I know this sounds like common sense but I did once experience a project were the gantt chart was "incomplete". It was built as the project progressed. The major things were captured however there was addition of bigger items later on. Things that should have been captured from the very start.
Having been a project manager, I can say the Gantt Chart is extremely valuable in the initial stages to better communicate relationships between tasks especially when team members think there are nol dependencies. The ability to create a common view of the project to gain consensus on the project is necessary. Also, I think some individuals to not take advantage of Gantt Charts during the project execution. Any and all projects during execution will experiences changes to scope, cost and schedule. The Gantt chart needs to be updated, maintained and communicated with such changes. Packages such as Microsoft Project have been enhanced to allow Gantt chart changes to demonstrate impact not only to the schedule but resources and cost. It would be well worth the investment in developing project management skills and in particular obtain your Project Management Professional (PMP) certification as soon as possible in your career.
I have had a few experiences in which I have been required to create Gantt charts, and I have found that it was an excellent representation of a project’s schedule in terms of tasks that need to be completed. Personally, I have found that understanding and setting up the relationships between tasks is imperative to a Gantt chart. By creating a Gantt chart with the task dependencies set up properly, a critical path is distinguished in the project. This also allows someone to think more critically and efficiently in terms of what tasks need to be completed by a certain point in the project. In general, another aspect to consider is if there is slack within the schedule. A project’s tasks are ideally scheduled with some slack as well to account for any potential issues that may arise that would delay the completion of a task. This would ensure that the overall project is not delayed from a few minor issues. For large projects in which multiple tasks must be completed, a Gantt chart would be perfect to use.
I know how you feel about incomplete Gantt charts. Having run projects for years, I think that the effort to develop gantt charts seem a little overwhelming. Having a project manager or designated project scheduler responsible for the initial development of the Gantt chart with input from the team members seems to work best. Not only do you have software expertise considerations, the project needs someone to maintain the schedule, updating it with status' from the team members.
Utilizing Gantt charts is an excellent project tool for a project to be successful, bur you need to make sure you have resources to manage it throughout the project. It is not a one time build at the beginning of the project. Skilled project managers use it to drive the project and make the proper course corrections needed. Things happen and the project team to adjust the schedule and associated cost and resources.
