LECTURE 5 – GANTT CHART

• GANTT Charts

• Constructing GANTT Charts

• Staffing and Re-scheduling

• Project Management Software

GANTT CHART

 A GANTT chart is a type of bar chart that illustrates a project schedule.

 After the PERT/CPM analysis is completed, the following phase is to construct the GANTT chart and then to re-allocate resources and re-schedule if necessary.

 GANTT charts have become a common technique for representing the phases and activities of a project work breakdown structure.

 It was introduced by Henry Gantt around 1910 – 1915.

 Characteristics:

 The bar in each row identifies the corresponding task

 The horizontal position of the bar identifies start and end times of the task

 Bar length represents the duration of the task

 Task durations can be compared easily

 Good for allocating resources and re-scheduling

 Precedence relationships can be represented using arrows

 Critical activities are usually highlighted

 Slack times are represented using bars with doted lines

 The bar of each activity begins at the activity earliest start time (ES)

 The bar of each activity ends at the activity latest finish time (LF).

 Advantages

 Simple

 Good visual communication to others

 Task durations can be compared easily

 Good for scheduling resources

 Disadvantages

 Dependencies are more difficult to visualise

 Minor changes in data can cause major changes in the chart

CONSTRUCTING GANTT CHART

 The steps to construct a GANTT chart from the information obtained by PERT/CPM are:

1. Schedule the critical tasks in the correct position.

2. Place the time windows in which the non-critical tasks can be scheduled.

3. Schedule the non-critical tasks according to their earliest starting times.

4. Indicate precedence relationships between tasks.

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