To Gantt Chart or Not to Gantt Chart 
That is the question
Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The risks and hassles of possible failure
Or to take steps against a sea of potential troubles,
And by detailing every step end them? To not fail: but to sleep;
No more; the troubled sleep of anxious mind.
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks of a disturbed nights sleep
The doubts which creep into the minds subconscious
For is it worth the time and effort taken
To detail a small project. Verses the satisfaction:
Of knowing a thorough job will minimise the chance of failure
Devoutly to be wish'd. To not fail, but to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of success what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal companies payroll,
Must give us pause: there's the respect of a job well done
But a calamity will stick and have a long life;
For what Engineer would bear the whips and scorns of time
with apologies to one William Shakespeare
But seriously folks, how do you decide when to produce a Gantt Chart and when the time and effort is just not worth it for the job at hand. As with most things in life , it is all relative.
How many times have you produced a full blown Gantt Chart for a small job and decided that producing the chart has proven to be a bigger effort than the job itself.
How many times have you run what you though was a small job without a Gantt Chart and wished that you had gone to the effort of producing one.
I guess that there is no easy answer and it becomes a value judgement decision. A lot depends on the job and the individual person running the job.
I tend to consider the complexity more than the value and also if other people are involved.
The value of the project can be quite irrelevant as (for example) installing an expensive item where the majority of the cost is in the item itself might only involve a small number of activities which can be quite easily controlled.
Conversely a complicated install needing critical timing with a production operation may have great complexity and involve many others but be of low capital value, tho' with an expensive impact if it doesn't come together or work.
I don't think that anyone would argue against a Gantt Chart for complex Projects. It fact I think that most people would see them as absolutely essential. But how do you gauge when the Chart might become a bigger task than the job itself.
And that ….. as Shakespeare said all those years ago, "Is the Question" |
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Wednesday 31 March, 2010 09:48 AM |
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