Benefits of Gantt chart

One of the biggest benefits of a Gantt chart is the tool's ability to show multiple tasks and timelines into a single document. It is easy for Stakeholders throughout an organization to understand where teams are in a process. It also clarifies the ways in which independent elements come together toward project completion. Teams can use Gantt charts to replace meetings and enhance other status updates by modifying the Gantt chart. Simply clarifying chart positions offers an easy, visual method to help team members understand task progress. As the task relates time in Gantt chart it motivates team to work more effectively. Gantt charts offer teams the ability to focus work at the front of a task timeline, or at the tail end of a chart segment. Both types of team members can find Gantt charts meaningful as they plug their own work habits into the overall project schedule. The benefits of a Gantt chart include the ability to sequence events and reduce the potential for overburdening team members. Some project managers even use combinations of charts to break down projects into more manageable sets of tasks. Sometimes, a lack of time or resources forces project managers and teams to find creative solutions. Seeing how individual tasks intertwine on Gantt charts often encourages new partnerships and collaborations that might not have evolved under traditional task assignment systems. Most managers regard scheduling as one of the major benefits of Gantt charts in a creative environment. Helping teams understand the overall impact of project delays can foster stronger collaboration while encouraging better task organization. It is the ability to issue new charts as your project evolves lets you react to unexpected changes in project scope or timeline. While revising your project schedule too frequently can eliminate some of the other benefits of Gantt charts, offering a realistic view of a project can help team members recover from setbacks or adjust to other changes. Another one of the benefits of Gantt charts is the ability for team members to leverage each others deadlines for maximum efficiency. Using Gantt charts during critical projects allows both project managers and participants to track team progress, highlighting both big wins and major failures.

Limitation of Gantt chart

It assumes only one end date of the project which affects the employee morale and their efficiency and thus deadline of the project. Estimates must be completed before the chart can be drawn.

 A Gantt chart does not effectively address the dependencies between jobs (although constraints can be added as vertical lines), dependencies are hard to verify. It is difficult to show two sets of dates when using techniques such as earliest start date and latest start. It is difficult to show slack and critical path without additional notation. Changes to the schedule require a redrawing of the chart. Several scheduling possibilities cannot be shown in the same chart. Resource assignments are not easy to illustrate. The Gantt chart does not highlight WBS elements with the highest risk of failure or delay. It can become quite complicated for large projects, nearly impossible to read. Dependencies can easily become a mess, especially for larger projects.

It is nearly impossible to print the Gantt chart on one page, even one big page, for every non-small project.

Alternative techniques to Gantt chart

A Gantt Box Chart allows for greater uncertainty in project deadlines by showing three end dates instead of one. Three end dates allow a project manager to build a set of assumptions around best case, realistic and worst case scheduling scenarios. On a Gantt Box Chart, these three end dates are encoded as a set of overlapping boxes. The start date is simply shown as a dot. Project managers may also lose sight of the project as they become too immersed in managing the schedule and Gantt chart. Mind maps may serve a given project better than a formal Gantt chart. A mind map is simply a diagram. Mind maps can represent words, ideas or tasks as links to a central word or idea. Elements of a mind map can be arranged intuitively and classified into groupings or branches. Mind maps are designed to be freer and less formal than a Gantt chart.

Benefits of Critical or (Network) path analysis

As it make dependencies visible between the project activities by allowing precedence diagram construction, it is easy for stake holders to easily make the task dependencies.

 Time between tasks is reduced to produce a smoothly run, coordinated project links to time based management During the network construction it forces manager to plan forward and to consider all relevant tasks happening before or should happen after the following event. By readjusting float the amount of resources can be minimised, thus improving efficiency Improved working capital control as stock can be ordered on JIT(Just In Time) basis The network acts as a control technique to check the progress of the project, which is particularly important if there are penalty clauses for late completion. It encourages the project manager to use compression techniques and critical path optimization where applicable to reduce the duration of the project. It enables the Project Manager to optimize efficiency by allocating resources appropriately; consequently the overall cost can be reduced.

Limitations of Critical or (Network) path analysis

For large and complex projects, therell be thousands of activities and dependency relationships. Without software it can be mighty difficult managing this. To make matters worse, if the plan changes during project execution then the precedence diagram will have to be redrawn

It factors time, prioritizes actions and identifies every step required from start to finish, However the Critical Path Method does not account for resource and resource allocation. When a client or manager shortens a timeline, CPA must take what's known as a "crash action" involving reprioritizing each step. In effect, more paths may become critical and planners must usually reprioritize resources. CPA works best with projects that are defined and static. When project planners know their goals, resources and time allotted, they can use CPA to create a solid plan. When project plans are in flux or resources change, CPA can become cumbersome and ineffective.

Alternative techniques to Critical or (Network) path analysis

As the Critical Path Method does not account for resource and resource allocation. Critical Chain will be handy in these situations.

In order to manage the crises during the project run-time we may use What-if scenario analysis technique prior to the commencement of the project. Thus if such crises happens during a project it can be easily manageable by applying predefined steps.