Christopher FaheyPartner| Behavior DesignNew York, Ny, United States
How many project managers really use the right-hand graphic visualization part of a Gantt chart? Do you value it yourself as a PM? Does it help you understand how your plan will work, or do you usually pay attention simply to the dates, resources, and dependencies visible in the left-side spreadsheet view? (note that I am not asking about whether the Gantt chart is useful for *other* people on your team, although I'd love to hear from people who have opinions on the merits of Gantt charts on that front, too). Thanks! Saving Changes...
Christopher FaheyPartner| Behavior DesignNew York, Ny, United States
I should note that I am seeking insights on this question for the purpose of writing an article about the relative merits of visualization tools and how well the work -- or don't work -- for different kinds of tasks.
Thanks so much in advance for whatever insights you, the professional PM community, can provide! Saving Changes...
Mike SmithDirector| Enterprise Intellect Pty LtdBonnet Bay, Australia
Hi Christopher,
I use the graphical visualisation, as I find it required much less mental processing than using the dates on the LHS. It's therefore easier to detect out of sequence tasks and get a feel for what's going on during a particular time period.
Note that this is more applicable to the planning phase than execution, I tend to use the LHS more for tracking.
Mike Saving Changes...
Hans RobbersSenior Director| SalesforceVlissingen, Netherlands
Christopher,
I do agree with Mike. I use the RHS for understanding the pace of the project, how many parallel tasks, how many tasks start before the rpedessor is finished.
It also give me a feeling when the busiest periods of the project are. The LHS does not provide me with those insights.
It is like the two sides of the brain, both have their distinct functions however the support each other and increase the total value
hopes this helps
Hans Saving Changes...
Hans RobbersSenior Director| SalesforceVlissingen, Netherlands
Christopher,
I do agree with Mike. I use the RHS for understanding the pace of the project, how many parallel tasks, how many tasks start before the rpedessor is finished.
It also give me a feeling when the busiest periods of the project are. The LHS does not provide me with those insights.
It is like the two sides of the brain, both have their distinct functions however the support each other and increase the total value
Hi,
sometimes I use RHS to have a big picture of scheduling and check that some results on overwork or about milestoneplan are right; the LHS to drill down the schedule.
I quite like to use it, however for most of my projects it is impractical due to limitations of screen size; it is difficult to concentrate scrolling around a 150+ task plan that has several months duration.
The Gantt really comes into its own when you need to explain your project to plan to somebody. Saving Changes...
Prasad VelagaExecutive| OptisolCollege Station, Tx, United States
Christopher,
The same issues bothered me for some time. A visual aid like Gantt chart has a lot of influence on how we perceive and think about project schedules. Using a separate line for each task, the standard project management Gantt charts require us to scroll vertically and horizontally to see the relative placement of tasks over time and they waste a lot of space on the screen. In my view, the scrolling reduces our perception of the project schedule in a comprehensive manner. To overcome this problem, we designed and developed a small software tool "GanttPack" that gives the most compact Gantt chart. Please see our web page www.optisol.biz/gantt/ganttpack.htm for illustration.
GanttPack shows task numbers in stead of task names along with task bars. But, the adjacent task in the same window can be used to see the name for task number. Moreover, the mouse-enabled functions will provide more information about tasks appearing on the screen. For example, a click on a task bar shows all predecessors and successors of the task in different colors. A zoom out can easily show schedules of hundreds of tasks without a need for scrolling. In my view, the main advantage of this view is the simple and effective visual comparison of task schedules. In my view, you are the best person to comment on our innovative, compact Gantt chart.
Christopher FaheyPartner| Behavior DesignNew York, Ny, United States
Prasad,
A clever solution. It has a similar effect as the "calendar" view in MS project, where tasks are clustered as compactly as they can be.
My critiques of your product? First, using numbers instead of task names is very problematic. I don't understand that decision at all.
It might also be helpful to group tasks into horizontal "lanes", one lane per resource name, helping people see their tasks as sequences.
Finally, a visualization of dependencies might be helpful. Saving Changes...
Prasad VelagaExecutive| OptisolCollege Station, Tx, United States
Christopher,
Thanks for your prompt comments. We extended our job shop scheduling tool to cover resource-constrained, multi-project scheduling because production is project-oriented in many engineer-to-order manufacturing systems. The Gantt chart of our original job shop scheduling tool shows all tasks in the same line (most compact form) because tasks of each job are to processed strictly in a specified sequence. Although such Gantt chart is very compact, it cannot be used when task dependencies can be described only by a directed network because task bars may overlap. Therefore, we provided an option to expand each line corresponding to a job / project to see task schedules in separate lines for each project (as shown in standard Gantt charts). Please see the web page www.optisol.biz/SchedulingTool.htm for illustration purpose. The first chart provides both types of displays.
Ganttpack is an intermediate version of the two features. When a task appears with sufficient length on the screen, its name can be printed in stead of the number. However, when the mouse movers over the task bar, we can anyway see the task name. An adjacent table which gives the list of task numbers and names is helpful to get the task name. Some trade-off is necessary in this compact version. The zoom in/out function is enabled by a slider located above the chart. We can increase or decrease the time scale based on a continuous variable.
Our job shop scheduling tool provides a separate chart for seeing resource schedules graphically. Moreover, a click on any row in that resource schedule chart shows resource schedule in a tabular form with all details of tasks to be performed by the resource.
I agree a visualization of task dependencies is necessary while looking at Gantt chart. For this reason, we included a simple precedence diagram in the same tool. Both charts can be seen in a vertically or horizontally split screen. Thanks once again for your comments.
Regards,
Prasad
Saving Changes...
Joelle GodfreySr Project Manager| DuracellNaperville, Il, United States
Definitely. I use the RHS to...
* Review the critical path
* See dependencies (what they are, whether any are missing), and
* Understand how specific critical activities are pushing the end date.
