Gantt charts still have a place in the agile-verse!
From the Easy in theory, difficult in practice Blog
by Kiron Bondale
My musings on project management, project portfolio management and change management.
I'm a firm believer that a pragmatic approach to organizational change that addresses process & technology, but primarily, people will maximize chances for success.
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Those of you who have followed me for a while will know that I value pragmatism over absolutism when it comes to delivery practices, tools and techniques. Pick the right tool for the right job should be a guiding principle followed by all project teams.
Easier said than done!
It is difficult when enterprise standards dictate a fixed tool set, but it is even more challenging when a company is undergoing a fundamental transformation of its delivery practices. When adopting new delivery frameworks it is tempting to embrace the bright, shiny new tools while branding those of the previous delivery approach as obsolete, but if we understand the context in which their usage will still add value we should still find a home for them in our toolboxes.
A good example of this is the use of Gantt charts by teams who are following an adaptive or agile delivery life cycle.
Although Gantt charts have been around since the early 1900's, just as with people, age is not negatively correlated to value. Tools such as burn-up charts provide an objective means of evaluating progress towards completing a release, but it is rare outside of pure product development contexts to find projects where a traditional representation of a schedule wouldn't also provide some incremental benefits.
This need could arise from any of the following causes:
- Complicated dependencies between the outputs from different teams
- Work streams that are delivered using traditional, deterministic life cycles
- Activities performed by supporting roles working outside of the agile teams
The project team will want to define the best way to combine the use of traditional and agile scheduling tools to avoid information duplication and inconsistency. Agile teams can continue to use their default tools, but traditional scheduling tools can be used to track other work which is not captured in the backlog yet still needs to be completed for project success.
If there is a need to have an overall integrated project schedule, the agile teams' sprints can be shown as a series of sequential fixed duration activities without the need to decompose those to any lower level. By reviewing burn-up charts, the exact number of such sequential activities can be adjusted to reflect accurate completion dates.
With significant change, there is a greater likelihood of success if you preserve valuable current practices when introducing new ones.
Posted on: May 21, 2018 07:00 AM |
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Joshua Render
Product Owner| Cognizant
Harrisville, Ny, United States
" When adopting new delivery frameworks it is tempting to embrace the bright, shiny new tools while branding those of the previous delivery approach as obsolete,"
My one concern here is that by not fully adopting you risk falling back into old habits.
That being said, I have used Gantt charts on Agile projects. A burndown chart is difficult to accommodate scope changes (and difficult to look at with a lot of scope changes) and no one else besides me seems to like burnup charts. The easy solution is just to modify a Gant Chart to account for the scope changes, and it seems to work well enough. I have seen them used this way on more than a few projects - usually right next to a burndown chart.
Burndown charts are still considered the go-to solution on the team level, and could also help management interpret the Gantt chart. But Gantt diagrams are indeed legitimate Agile tools from a project management standpoint, and could greatly help higher management understand and oversee the progress made against estimates.
Thanks Kevin & Joshua - I'm an advocate of following a Shu approach until there is a degree of agile maturity evident, but where gaps exist in managing the overall scope of work or in communicating progress, the use of additional tools wouldn't break that good practice.
Joshua Render
Product Owner| Cognizant
Harrisville, Ny, United States
Shu Ha Ri. I am studying for the PMI-ACP and that is burned into my brain from the study material. It's a good approach to take. I wish I would have learned it a decade ago.
Very interesting, thanks for sharing
Sachin Pereira
Oracle Solutions Architect Implementation Lead, Project Leader| HB Associates
Mangaluru, Karnataka, India
Rami Kaibni
Community Champion
Senior Projects Manager | Field & Marten Associates
New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada
Gantt Charts are good Kiron but they somehow limit team work and colalboration and that’s why in Agile they try to use Task Boards as much as possible as they are more visual. Anyone can update them and they are great collboration tools. What do you think ?
Thanks Eduin & Sachin!
Rami, team level work should be managed via Kanban boards, and the normal burn-up/burn-down charts but looking at the project as an integrated whole across multiple teams and with external stakeholder activities reflected is better done via a Gantt chart.
Kiron
Michael Delaney
Partner| Delaney Management LLC
West Chester, Pa, United States
Interesting using the Shu Ha Ri, thanks for shring
Thanks Kiron, the humble Gantt chart will always be around.
Kiron, thanks for sharing, I am with you supportive of Gantt chart, they say OLD IS GOLD
Thanks Michael, Sante & Riyadh!
Mike Frenette
Manager, IT PMO| Halifax Water (retired)
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
There is no silver bullet. Hybrid approaches - using the best tools for the job - is the way to go. The Agile frameworks are great for team communication. I especially like Scrum for high visibility of work, great client involvement, daily stand-ups and fixed length Sprints that allow that frequent showcasing of work done. But schedules are important, and a Gantt Chart with solid dependencies is the only way I know to show all project work, including Sprints as fixed length tasks, as you point out.
I like to flip this around a little: Agile methods in traditional projects. Card Walls, fixed length Sprints and Daily Stand-ups, in particular, can be very useful on any project.
Anish Abraham
Privacy Program Manager| University of Washington
Auburn, Wa, United States
I like Gantt chart, and glad to know that it will be still around. Thanks for sharing, Kiron.
Thanks for sharing Kiron!!
Thanks Mike, Anish & Cibin!
Al Chen
Solutions Consultant| Coda
New York, Ny, United States
This cause I think is interesting: "Activities performed by supporting roles working outside of the agile teams"
While Gantt charts have the ability to show a bird's eye view of team members, I think in an agile environment being able to change these charts from a bottoms-up perspective is important. Last thing you want is an outdated chart because the project manager did not get the latest updates from his or her team members.
Agree with Mike : Hybrid approaches - using the best tools for the job - is the way to go.
Thanks for sharing Kiron. Completely agree and I have had similar experience in delivering my projects
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