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Gantt Chart

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Gantt Chart

Introduction.

A Gantt chart is a visual project management tool first developed and used by Henry Gantt during World War I. Gantt charts, also known as bar charts, time lines, or milestone charts are one of the most popular and useable ways to present project information.

The parts of a Gantt chart.

A Gantt chart lists tasks or phases of a project from top to bottom and has time running from left to right. Each task has a start date and duration (or end date). Planned tasks are usually drawn as open bars, which are filled in as the work is done. Alternatively separate filled in bars can be drawn below the open bars to more clearly show how the tasks are proceeding in relation to their planned schedule. Additionally, a Gantt …show more content…

The associated research and development of a new product.

The initial launch of a new product.

Major business purchases such as new factories, machines, computers, etc.

Why have project planning?

To make people within the organisation aware that a change is about to happen

To reduce uncertainty in the implementation stage.

To develop a method for monitoring the change.

Critical Path Method (CPM).

The critical path method was first developed at Dupont during the 1950's. CPM analysis consists of using a lot of diagrams to look at the activity, time needed and result. We advise you to read a CPM based book in conjunction with reading this section to see how the diagrams develop. We shall now briefly discuss CPM logic.

There are 2 basic areas of CPM:

A. Activity on arrow.

B. Activity on node.

A. Activity on arrow. Basically the diagrams are constructed using arrows. An activity is used describe a task that needs to be completed or is waiting to be completed. An event is the start/completion of a activity/series of activities.

Normal activities are show as straight lines with arrows attached. Dummy activities are described as being something that needs to occur but which does not take up any resources, these are shown as:

The general convention of the diagrams (a) time goes from the left to right, (b) the arrow length has no meaning (c) the logic is that as one activity emerges from another activity it gets a higher number.

A. Activity on node.

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