There is usually a post somewhere blasting the use of Gantt charts, Mr. Gantt, his philosophy and approach to management. Oh throw in Taylor as well for good measure.
Many times these rants are for the right reasons, most times not,especially when the ranter is on the outside looking in,rather than doing the actual work of project or program management. But Gantt charts have powerful forms as well. When the Gantt chart is used as a Power Point presentation tool, it's pretty much a waste of everyone's time and effort. It confuses and actual hides the elements of the schedule. But like anything - a fool with a tool, is still a fool. Don't blame the tool, look for the fool.
But when the Gantt chart is combined with the concept of Integrated Master Plan and Integrated Master Schedule it paints a clear and concise picture of where the project is headed and how we can recognize "done".
Remember to always ask anyone presenting a picture of the project or a tool that claims to help you on the project - "does this picture or tool help me to see what DONE looks like?"
Here's a picture of a project plan using a Gantt chart that does show what DONE looks like.
The elements of this chart are:
- The Program Event (PE) - which is the maturity assessment point in the project. This is the point where we look at what has happened so far an determine if it meets the planned maturity. By maturity we mean - what technical or operational performance measures "should" have been met at this point in time.
- The Significant Accomplishments (SA) - are those accomplishments that should have been done, or are required to be done, before the planned level of maturity can be reached.
- The Accomplishment Criteria (AC) - are the "exit criteria" for the work performed in the schedule. This work is performed in a Work Package and the AC describes what done looks like for the Work Package.
- Finally there are the tasks - this is the work activities inside the work package
Most poorly defined Gantt's, like poorly formed Work Breakdown Structures, just list the work to before performed. There is no explicit statement of what DONE looks like, how we are measuring progress toward DONE, or what are the entry and exit criteria is for DONE.
So when this occurs, you have every reason to say Gantt's are of no use.
Build an IMP/IMS style plan and you can see what done looks like right there in the MSFT Project schedule.
Take a look at the DoD IMP/IMS Preparation and Use Guide for the principles of planning and executing projects in this manner.
The next thing to do with your Gantt chart formatted in this way is to draw it as a PERT Chart using the Critical Tools PERTChart Expert tool. The picture below is an actual IMP/IMS showing the Program Event, the Significant Accomplishments, the Accomplishment Criteria and the Tasks needed to produce the Accomplishment Criteria. This picture, along with all the other Program Events, hangs on the wall of the program area. The engineers and developers can then "see" the flow of their work, how it moves the project forward in terms of increasing maturity. The numbers of task are in the 100's so they're clipped off the bottom. The PERTChart Expert tool can also sort and plot the plan by the persons name, so I can see what I'm accountable for in this program event.
This is the Big Visible Chart, the agilest talk about. In fact the BVC, was hanging in the hall of Building 06, TRW, One Space Park, Redondo Beach, in the late 70's when I would walk through the lobby and to my office, where I was writing FORTRAN code for a spacecraft. So like everything else of value - there is nothing new.
Here's an example of a "real" Integrated Master Plan. Below the Accomplishment Criteria (AC), there are work activities (tasks) needed to make the AC produce it's little piece of "done."
Notice we always speak in the Integrated Master Plan in past tense verbs - "done." This forces the conversation from effort based words, like "we'll get a short list of review it," (A.03.01) to "we reviewed and short list and now we're done reviewing the short list." This is a powerful notion - to speak about "done" in the past tense. No escaping the description of "done." No confusing effort with the results. We're only interested in results. Done is the result. The semantics of these nouns and verbs goes like this:
These phrases "focus the mind" on what DONE looks like. How many times have you seen a line in a schedule that says "test." Test what? What is the outcome of the test? Why are we doing this test? To add direct measurable value to any schedule, Gantt chart form or not, use the semantics above to replace "test" with "Final Integration Testing of SharePoint SOA interface with HR Complete.
By the Way all this formatting in MSFT Project is done with macros, flags, outline level codes.
The Final Summary
Here's the topology of a good project schedule, along with it's plan, that can be laid out in a Gantt Chart, plotted with PERTChart Expert and used to describe what "done" looks like.
This picture is from the Lewis & Fowler Deliverables Based Planningsm, handbook. Deliverables Based Planningsm is an end-to-end program management method, applicable to nearly every project or program domain.
