As you all know, I abhor MS Project  because of its lack of intuitiveness as well as stove piping a certain way of doing work.  I checked out Merlin 2 to see if there was Gantt Chart software for the Mac that might use instead.

Additional Resources

Here’s how Merlin is Awesome — especially in comparison to MS Project:

• You can zoom in to days and zoom out to weeks/months quite easily. Scaling seems like a really awesome feature that Project is just way behind in presentation-wise.
• Merlin provides a library of frequently used Gantt Chart templates to get you started.  When importing Gantt charts from one project into another projects in MS Project, it just hurts.  Bad, BAD things happen.
• Gantt Chart presentation in Merlin is just splendid.  Simply right off the charts.  Drop-shadows, anti-aliasing, soft edges — it’s just gorgeous.  With this Gantt chart tool for the Mac, my project documentation now has substance and style.
• Merlin’s representation of task completion is incredibly intuitive.  The shading of the entire bar just makes so much more sense than how it’s done in Project.
• Task names are printed on the bars in the Gantt chart.  You can print the Gantt chart without the WBS, and convey nearly the entire project plan in so much less space.
• Merlin has a well thought-out Print dialog with tons of helpful options which allow you to quickly print exactly what you want of the Gantt chart.
• Merlin’s help system is remarkable – it provides a thoughtful and well presented introductory course in Project Management concepts mapped to the part of the software to which that lesson applies.
• Merlin is completely compatible with Microsoft Project – but MS Project is not Project Management software for the Mac – so, no Gantt charts on the Mac from MS Project.
• Merlin is scads cheaper.  In fact, if you want to get the beta of Merlin 2.5, it’s FREE!  Yes, you heard me right, free.  Have at it.

If you’re looking for a Gantt Charting tool for the Mac or for Project Management Software for the Mac — Merlin is a serious contender.  Give ‘er a peek.

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What is the definition of a Gantt Chart?

A Gantt Chart is a first-rate tool when used by PM’s that seek to envision, prepare, and track estimated and true progress of projects. Its graphical way of showing data its executive leadership and front-line staff alike to readily recognize the flow of a project, without necessitating a full tutorial about project management.

Each occasion we, in our project management careers , go through the efforts of our working lives, toiling to meet and exceed the self-set targets, a quiet moment of appreciation extends onward to Henry Gantt for innovating this easy-to-use diagram to communicate project schedules, as the timeline makes it possible for us to excel as project managers.

Additional Resources

Project Timeline Sample Gantt Chart

Background

Henry Gantt

Henry Gantt was a management consultant and engineer. Henry Laurence Gantt devised the Gantt chart in the 1910’s. At that time, Gantt Charts were quite innovative and unheard of. Huge construction projects like like the Hoover Dam and the Eisenhower National Defense Interstate Highway System necessitated a tool such as the Gantt diagram,

Now, a staple project management tool and buzzword in every leader’s repertoire of modern project administration tools today, Gantt Charts are routinely deployed in the by PM’s, planners, and system developers. Working on projects without them is unthinkable, except in the rare case when the inherent nature of the work does not require them.

The Gantt Chart has found universal status, known in French as diagramme de Gantt and Spanish as carta Gantt, graficas de Gantt, and diagrama de Gantt], indeed the whole world speaks this common language of project representation.

HL Gantt’s global contribution to the modern project management is honored today through the Henry Laurence Gantt Medal. This medal, established in 1929, is awarded for distinguished achievement in management and service to the community.

Practical Application

So, how does someone use a project plan? These charts are generally introduced during the planning and scheduling stages of projects. A visual tool, the charts allow us to obtain a bird’s eye view of the project in its totality. From beginning to the end, the charts force us to:

1. Make a realistic assessment of the end-time of the project.
2. Align the effort (or phases) – in sequential order, as well as in parallel.
3. Think in terms of task dependencies – which task is dependent on what.
4. Concentrate on the necessary resources, both when and where, throughout the run of the project.

After the project timeline charts are drawn, and project execution begins, we start comparing our actual, ground-level performance against what was planned. This comparison is possible by checking the field reports against the project Gantt charts. Thus, we get to benefit from them in two immediate ways:

1. To observe work in progress. At the minimum, a percentage of completion can be worked out, by taking a snapshot of the progress “right-now”, and comparing it with the chart, for the “right-now” point of time. If there are any slip-ups in terms of time or cost, we are forced to question our optimism (or hope?) that the tasks would get completed earlier then they actually did, at the planning stage. This introspection helps in more realistic planning for a now more matured manager in their future projects.
2. To also consider ways to speed up future tasks, while there is still time, to ensure completion by the total project’s estimated deadline. Perhaps resources (better manpower, more funds, or additional material) need to be allocated far in advance for a task that is going to be initiated later down the line? Maybe a task or two can be rescheduled more efficiently, in order to meet some unforeseen contingencies that occurred after project initiation?

How to Create a Gantt Chart

A Gantt Chart, after all this mess, is just a chart with rows and columns. One simply writes all the tasks, one below the other, so that each task occupies a single row. Alongside the names, columns are drawn to indicate the dates. The dates may be in increments of days, weeks or months. Depending on the total length of the project, we may decide the granularity of the date increments which is appropriate – days, weeks or months.

Now, for each task in a row, we draw a horizontal (preferably hollow) bar alongside, with its start point in the column representing the date when it is scheduled to begin, and the end point in the column of the date when it is expected to end. Once these horizontal bars are drawn, we step back and get to observe the tasks that are going to run sequentially, in parallel, or overlap.

After the project has started, PM’s just fill in the hollow bars to a length that is in proportion to the fraction of the work that has been completed, for every task. In order to judge where we stand on any given date – say today, we can draw an imaginary vertical line through the chart at the current date – this is a “snapshot line”. The tasks that are supposed to have completed fully shall be to the left of this snapshot line. If they are indeed completed, their hollow bars shall have been completely filled. Partial filling indicates slip-ups. Tasks that are crossing the snapshot line are current tasks in hand; well, at the least they are tasks that were scheduled to have begun before today. If the horizontal bar on such tasks is filled in to the left of the line, then the current tasks are behind schedule; if they are filled in to the right of the line, then they are ahead of schedule. Future tasks, of course, will lie completely on the right of the snapshot line.

Complex projects

The aforementioned description is for simpler projects. Ideally, tasks in simple projects would not go beyond a single page, which makes them manageable. Often, and especially in complex projects, each task may be broken into smaller and more easily manageable subtasks. These subtasks may be moved to subordinate charts, with their own timelines. In management terminology, the process – of breaking up of these tasks into independent unit-tasks that can be completed on their own – has been given an exotic name of Work Breakdown Structure. The Work Breakdown Structure enables the project coordinator’s mind to grasp the project in its entirety as well as to think in terms of allocating resources, assign responsibilities, and measure and control the project, for every task and sub-task.

Further, in team-oriented projects, where each task is to be handled by different personnel, there might be an additional column against each task, where initials of these personnel may be entered, to identify who is supposed to be doing what.

Project Milestones

Finishing milestones are occasions for celebration, to pop the champagne. They help to boost the morale of personnel involved in making the project a success. If the project timeline is drawn up along with suitable (and achievable!) milestones, by using some special symbol such as brightly-colored diamonds, and the chart is kept in some centrally visible place, it would motivate all the people to achieve them. These milestones could range from perhaps the approval of project design by the customer, or completion of project prototype, to delivery of individual modules by different teams.

Conclusion

Since HL Gantt guided us toward enlightenment, such a library of books about management have been written on managing projects. Indeed, Project Management is a full-fledged discipline in itself, deserving of a separate academic degree for those who pursue it as a career and profession. More powerful models have evolved in the past few decades, which strive to capture the complexity of human endeavor and track and monitor its progress. The schedule continues to be used in some avatar or the other in all such models. And for simple projects, The project timeline is the solution.

A Gantt Diagram is a graphical demonstration of work effort as segments of work across time. It aids planning and tracking of project development and resource allotment. On the left-hand section of the Gantt Diagram flows a column with the WBS (essentially, a series of tasks). The chart component shows time progression, conveyed either in absolute or relative time.

When building a Gantt Diagram, each unit of work consumes one row. Dates go across the top, staggered as appropriate to the enormity of the project under review. Bars are shown as rows in the Gantt Diagram depict the beginning and end times of every piece of work in the project. Tasks may happen concurrently, one after the other, and overlap.

Practically every planning and scheduling of projects software (like Basecamp) allows project management through Gantt diagram representation of project workflow. These tools provide managerial toolsets to start, track and report projects.

Gantt Chart Example

Gantt Chart History

The Gantt Diagram was invented by Henry L. Gantt, an American engineer, in 1917. Henry Laurence Gantt came up with the prototype of the Gantt chart around World War I. The chart proved to be so powerful and useful that it has remain unchanged for practically a century. Ultimately, in the 1990’s when Gantt Charts were modified to include linkage lines between tasks.

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