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...
I guess it depends on whether you are a 'visual' person or not (and it would be interesting to see if the %age 'visual/non visual' split in the PM community was the same as in the general population).
I've met plenty of PM's who completely ignore the right hand side and use project tools like a dependency-aware spreadsheet. Whilst its not scientific, my observation has always been that the PM's who tend to the the left hand side of the chart are also the PM's who have a very detailed and meticulous approach - the RHS PM's (again in my experience) tend to be the 'bigger picture' guys who see the project in more holistic terms (I'm not taking sides here - you need both types in your organisation)
For me (and I'm a visual person) the picture tells me everything I need to know. If the picture is too cluttered to tell what's going on, that's a sign for me that the only person who understands the schedule is the PM - It also reveals the overall structure and 'parallel-ness' of the plan.
Whilst they are great for detailed scheduling, personally I abandoned Gantt charts in favour of simple Milestone Charts long ago. They are quick to produce and you can get the 'who delivers what when' across in a single page - the simplicity makes it easier to keep the team in step with what's happening in the project - the milestones focus everyone on 'what' needs to be delivered and not 'how', and it makes communicating the main points of the schedule to people outside the team very straightforward.
For years I used to draw these up in Visio or OmniGraffle - thinking there must be a better way I 'rolled my own' tool which has now been released into the wild at http://www.milestoneplanner.com . Whilst its not the sort of diagram that suits everyone, sometimes a simple to understand representation of the project or programme can be extremely useful to have up your sleeve.
Christopher - as you are interested in the visual representation of project plans, have you read any of Edward Tuftes work? I seem to recall he did some good thinking around representation of project info.
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William WiliamsProject Manager| W3src ConsultingCanyon, Tx, United States
Gantt charts are one dimensional in essence. The chart speaks only to schedule. The addition, by software companies, of dependencies, resources, and the like to Gantt charts, in my opinion, obfuscates the value and adds complexity.
In my personal practice, I use the right-side view as a quick check on the time lines and overall schedule. I also, as someone mentioned previously, use it to quickly see critical path and movements caused by changes to critical path elements. I do not ordinarily display dependencies unless I am troubleshooting some dependency issue in the schedule and need a quick view. In my opinion and in the case of larger WBS's, dependency lines detract from the schedule message. Neither do I add resource names to the tasks in the Gantt view for the same reason. Dependencies and resources are better viewed or displayed using different views or tools. Dates only; durations usually.
As a simple graphical view of the schedule, Gantt charts are easily understandable and explained to project stakeholders and team members alike. Without all the distractions and especially when rolled up to the major activity level, they are useful when schedule is the point of discussion. I usually print them to a PDF or other sharable graphic format for presentation.
Filtered to show only critical path activities, a Gantt can make a useful tool for the PM as well as presentation to others. Filtered to show only activities within a specific WBS code or by filtered by specific resources, they can be useful as well under some circumstances.
Many times, I use milestone driven schedules as someone previously mentioned. When doing so I do not always use milestones only -- there may be WBS activities and, perhaps, tasks included as well which are the successor / predecessor relationships driving the milestone dates. In either case (with or without other WBS elements), I rely on dependency driven milestones to reflect the schedule. Many times, for my own use as well as for discussion with team members and stakeholders, I filter the view to milestones only and use the resulting Gantt chart.
As long as we realize a Gantt is not "the project" it is only the schedule, then the ways we use it start to makes sense and the value is easily understood without being overstated. Saving Changes...
