Gantt Charts
Posted on January 20, 2010
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Gantt Charts
The Gantt chart is a common time planning tool. This is known as bar chart. This was developed by Henry Gantt in 1900.
There are two co-ordinates, one to represent time and one to show the jobs or activities. The activities are represented as bars. Let’s take the example of Security and Access Control project. A simple Gantt chart is shown as below:
Tasks are outlined in two sections. Here the length of the bar indicates the duration the task takes to complete. Each task uses a yellow triangle to indicate the start date of the task and a green down triangle to indicate the finish date of the task. Generally, in the project, some tasks can be taken up concurrently while others cannot start unless some other job is completed. Hence the relationship between activities can be seen. The chart is most useful in describing a planned schedule of a project.
It is also possible to use the chart to monitor the progress of the project, by shading a part of the box for time spent during each activity. Below given figure shows the magnified bar which has a part shaded. The shaded portion gives the progress of the project. As the project progresses, the shaded portion keeps increasing and thus monitoring can be done.
Here in the chart also shown on this schedule are the responsible sub-contractors for the project.
When a project is under way, Gantt Charts help you to monitor whether the project is on schedule. If it is not, it allows you to pinpoint the remedial action necessary to put it back on schedule.
In practice project managers use software tools like Microsoft Project to create Gantt Charts. They also use it to make modification of plans easier and provide facilities for monitoring progress against plans, as well as generating resource histograms.
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