| Gantt charts - love or hatred? | | | | - organisational politics and readiness |
| They are a fundamental tool in a project manager's | | | | - organisational technology literacy |
| toolkit. However, an unseasoned project manager | | | | - organisational staff skills level |
| can find that they can take over the project and | | | | - technology proposal |
| result in reduced control. How so? In this article we | | | | - business risk (eg market issues/competitive |
| will look at their potential pitfalls and provide some | | | | pressure and degree of process change required) |
| tips and strategies for ensuring successful project | | | | - timescale - rate of business change |
| management. Gantt charts are, after all, just one of | | | | - resource availability |
| many ways of presenting the project planning and | | | | - commitment of sponsors |
| actual data that has been input. | | | | The outcome should be categorisation of the project |
| Firstly, let us be clear that we are not going to talk | | | | as Low, Moderate or High Complexity. Note that a |
| about repetitive implementation/rollout projects | | | | Moderate Complexity project may have a High |
| where a template project plan has been refined over | | | | Complexity phase (and this links back to Contingent |
| a series of projects and becomes a standard | | | | Project Management - dynamic tuning of the project |
| checklist for project management (for example for | | | | management process itself during the project). |
| commercial off-the-shelf software). This paper is | | | | These differing levels of Complexity would require |
| about those one off (or initial template try-out) | | | | differing levels of project management effort |
| projects. These projects may be within organisations | | | | allocated in the resource budget. A rough guide would |
| large or small. | | | | be: |
| Large organisations which have mature and well run | | | | Low Complexity - project management effort 7-11% |
| 'IT' departments may well have formal project | | | | of overall resource budget |
| offices with established project plan standards, | | | | Moderate Complexity - project management effort |
| dedicated project office staff and probably | | | | 12-17% of overall resource budget |
| automated plan-quality checking systems (for | | | | High Complexity - project management effort |
| example seeking orphan tasks/missing dependencies | | | | 18-22% or more, of overall resource budget |
| and measuring other metrics to provide an overall | | | | Undoubtedly these figures will seem inordinately high |
| 'plan quality' assessment). Smaller organisations - for | | | | to some managers. However, more than 30% of |
| example, 'solutions houses' - may lack this level of | | | | projects are deemed failures - and failure is always |
| sophistication but will almost certainly require detailed | | | | the result of inadequate project management (which |
| project plans. | | | | includes Risk Assessment and Management). So, the |
| What is good about Gantt charts? | | | | 'buck stops' at the quality or quantity of project |
| Gantt charts are an excellent format for presenting | | | | management. |
| dependency and proress data, but as with most | | | | What has all this got to do with Gantt charts? |
| things in life, the returns will be dependent on the | | | | Simply: |
| investment. So, the more care that goes into the | | | | - project plan structure should reflect the risk analysis |
| project plan data set-up, then the better will be the | | | | priorities with simple milestones / gateways |
| feedback. However, there is a danger that the level | | | | - the degree of detail built into project plan database |
| of detail that can be built into the typical project plan | | | | should be proportional to the project complexity |
| can itself require a disproportionate amount of | | | | - management reporting requirements should be |
| project management maintenance. We will not go | | | | proportional to project complexity, which then drives |
| into great detail here, but dependency and critical | | | | the maintenance overhead. |
| path management are of major importance. So, | | | | Then, the maintenance requirement is focused on |
| 'sweating the detail' in the plan is critical at the outset. | | | | what really matters. The Gantt charts reflect that, |
| This leads to the actual project management | | | | with the degree of detail proportional to the phase |
| overhead getting out of kilter with the budget | | | | risk. |
| allocation. What suffers then? An overloaded project | | | | The ideal outcome is that the project manager |
| management team, under-maintained plan / actual | | | | comes to the office every day thinking 'How do I |
| data or both even together. The result is Gantt chart | | | | move the project forward today towards that next |
| slavery. | | | | milestone'? and not 'another 4 hours collecting data |
| So, how do we avoid this paradox (aside from | | | | and 2 hours inputting it before I can get any real |
| unlimited budgets)? | | | | work done'. |
| The approach I recommend is based on an initial | | | | Then, the project manager's role is mainly one of |
| comprehensive Risk Assessment of a project. The | | | | pro-action and not one of administration. |
| areas to be considered will certainly include: | | | | |