Benefits And Uses Of Gantt Chart In Project Management

What is Gantt Chart?

Discuss about the Case Study of Implementing IS at BilbioZ.

Gantt chart is usually utilized within the project management approach. This technique is one of the most effective ways of representing the activities of the project that is visualized against the time period. On the left of the Gantt chart, the activities are visualized and on the right side and on the left side, the appropriate time schedule is shown (Dayani and Gelbard 2015). The Gantt chart is beneficial to track the project progress against the predefined deadline of the project activities. The Gantt chart is able to visualize the start and finish date of individual activities within the project. This technique can be used for small and complex, both the projects but the use of the tool for different projects is based on the complexity (Baker and Trietsch 2013). Taken as an example, for simple project, the spreadsheet can be used but for complex and big projects project management software is the suitable choice.

The Gantt chart is able to provide clarity regarding the tasks of the project. This is possible because the chart holds the activities of the project as well as time within the same document. The stakeholders are able to recognize which part of the project is in progress and the resources allocated to it. Various project management software is able to represent the recourses that are associated with the task (Schwalbe 2015). The Gantt chart is also serves as an internal motivation to the project team members. The chart allows the team members of the project to concentrate on the project activities more as it allows tracking the tasks.

The selected organization is specialist in selling the collectible and rare books. These books are collected from the different market places from the whole world. The organization was created in 2000 (Biblio.com, 2017). The organization is currently managing the internal tasks manually. Maintain the business operations is very critical for the organization staff. Because of the existing manual operations, the error in the business operation is very high.

BiblioZ is currently considering implementing an information system within the organization in order to making the business processes automatic. The system will be implemented through the SDLC approach. A project manager will be employed for managing tasks. The project manager will be responsible for creating the Gantt chart of the project. The project manager will provide the Gantt chart to the stakeholders of the project.

Benefits of Gantt Chart in Project Management

The Gantt chart of the information system implementation at BiblioZ has been presented in the table 1. The Gantt chart consists of activities, time frame (starting and ending time of the project activities), and predecessor of each activity, resource name and cost of the project.

WBS	Task Name	Duration	Start	Finish	Predecessors	Resource Names	Cost
0	Information System Implementation at BiblioZ	148 days	Mon 9/4/17	Wed 3/28/18			$107,400.00
1	Project Planning	53 days	Mon 9/4/17	Wed 11/15/17			$24,600.00
1.1	Project Charter Creating	2 days	Sat 9/9/17	Tue 9/12/17		Project manager	$1,200.00
1.2	Defining Scope of the Project	2 days	Sat 9/9/17	Tue 9/12/17	2	Project manager	$1,200.00
1.3	Identifying the Potential Team Members	2 days	Sat 9/9/17	Tue 9/12/17	3	Project manager, Administration officer	$1,920.00
1.4	Defining Responsibility and Role	2 days	Sat 9/9/17	Tue 9/12/17	4	Administration officer, Project manager	$1,920.00
1.5	Scheduling Kickoff Meeting	2 days	Sun 9/10/17	Tue 9/12/17	5	Administration officer	$720.00
1.6	Distributing Project Plan	3 days	Mon 9/11/17	Wed 9/13/17	5	Administration officer	$1,080.00
1.7	Signing Contract with the Third Party System Vendor	1 day	Mon 9/11/17	Mon 9/11/17	4,5	Administration officer	$360.00
1.8	Generating Baseline of Scope	3 days	Tue 9/12/17	Thu 9/14/17	8	Project manager	$1,800.00
1.9	Generating Cost Baseline and Schedule	3 days	Tue 9/12/17	Thu 9/14/17	9	Project manager	$1,800.00
1.10	Recognition of Risks Associated with Project	4 days	Mon 9/4/17	Thu 9/7/17	10	Project manager	$2,400.00
1.11	Development of Strategies regarding Risk Management	5 days	Fri 10/13/17	Tue 10/24/17	11	Project manager	$3,000.00
1.12	Development of Time Management Approach	3 days	Tue 10/31/17	Thu 11/2/17	12	Project manager	$1,800.00
1.13	Development Resource Management Approach	2 days	Fri 11/3/17	Mon 11/6/17	13	Project manager	$1,200.00
1.14	Project Schedule Development	2 days	Tue 11/7/17	Wed 11/8/17	14	Project manager	$1,200.00
1.15	Project Budget Estimation	5 days	Thu 11/9/17	Wed 11/15/17	15	Project manager	$3,000.00
1.16	Completion of Project Plan	0 days	Sat 9/9/17	Sat 9/9/17			$0.00
2	Requirement Analysis	28 days	Mon 9/4/17	Wed 10/11/17			$17,160.00
2.1	Recognition of fact Finding Techniques	2 days	Fri 9/15/17	Mon 9/18/17	17	Business analyst	$880.00
2.2	Collecting Information through fact Finding Approach	10 days	Mon 9/18/17	Fri 9/29/17	19	Business analyst	$4,400.00
2.3	Analyzing the Gathered Data	3 days	Wed 9/20/17	Fri 9/22/17	20	Programmer	$1,080.00
2.4	Recognizing the Requirements of the System	8 days	Mon 9/4/17	Wed 9/27/17	21	Programmer, Project manager	$7,680.00
2.5	Investigating the System Requirements	4 days	Wed 10/4/17	Mon 10/9/17	22	Project manager	$2,400.00
2.6	Documenting the System Requirements	2 days	Tue 10/10/17	Wed 10/11/17	23	Administration officer	$720.00
2.7	Completion of Requirement Analysis	0 days	Wed 10/11/17	Wed 10/11/17	24		$0.00
3	Designing Phase	33 days	Thu 10/12/17	Mon 11/27/17			$17,880.00
3.1	Getting the Requirements of the System	1 day	Thu 10/12/17	Thu 10/12/17	25	Administration officer	$360.00
3.2	System Requirement Investigation	8 days	Thu 10/26/17	Mon 11/6/17	27	Project manager	$4,800.00
3.3	Generating the Functions of the System	9 days	Fri 10/13/17	Wed 10/25/17	25,27	Programmer	$3,240.00
3.4	System Unit Designing	7 days	Thu 10/26/17	Fri 11/3/17	29	Programmer	$2,520.00
3.5	Designing UI or User Interface	5 days	Mon 11/6/17	Fri 11/10/17	30	Graphical user interface developer	$1,400.00
3.6	Architecture of the System	6 days	Mon 11/13/17	Mon 11/20/17	31	Programmer	$2,160.00
3.7	Database Design	4 days	Tue 11/21/17	Fri 11/24/17	32	Database developer	$1,600.00
3.8	Network Design	5 days	Tue 11/21/17	Mon 11/27/17	31,32	Programmer	$1,800.00
3.9	Completion of Design Phase	0 days	Mon 11/27/17	Mon 11/27/17	34		$0.00
4	Development Phase	87 days	Tue 11/28/17	Wed 3/28/18			$44,960.00
4.1	Starts Creating the Program	25 days	Tue 11/28/17	Mon 1/1/18	35	Programmer	$9,000.00
4.2	Development of System	25 days	Tue 1/2/18	Mon 2/5/18	35,37	Graphical user interface developer, Programmer	$16,000.00
4.3	Creating the Database	15 days	Tue 2/6/18	Mon 2/26/18	38	Database developer	$6,000.00
4.4	Implementation System Network	17 days	Wed 2/28/18	Wed 3/28/18	39	Programmer	$6,120.00
4.5	Developing User Interface	12 days	Tue 2/6/18	Wed 2/21/18	37	Graphical user interface developer	$3,360.00
4.6	Establishing Connection between System and Database	7 days	Thu 2/22/18	Fri 3/2/18	41	Database developer, Programmer	$3,040.00
4.7	Establishing Connection between System and Website	3 days	Mon 3/5/18	Wed 3/7/18	42		$0.00
4.8	Establishing Connection between System and Network	4 days	Mon 3/5/18	Thu 3/8/18	42	Programmer	$1,440.00
4.9	Completion of Development Phase	0 days	Thu 3/8/18	Thu 3/8/18	44		$0.00
5	Testing Phase	6 days	Fri 3/9/18	Fri 3/16/18			$2,400.00
5.1	Design/Requirements Review	1 day	Fri 3/9/18	Fri 3/9/18	45	Tester	$400.00
5.2	Test Planning	1 day	Mon 3/12/18	Mon 3/12/18	47	Tester	$400.00
5.3	Test Design	1 day	Tue 3/13/18	Tue 3/13/18	48	Tester	$400.00
5.4	Test Environment Setup	1 day	Wed 3/14/18	Wed 3/14/18	49	Tester	$400.00
5.5	Test Execution	1 day	Thu 3/15/18	Thu 3/15/18	50	Tester	$400.00
5.6	Test Reporting	1 day	Fri 3/16/18	Fri 3/16/18	51	Tester	$400.00
5.7	Testing Phase Complete	0 days	Fri 3/16/18	Fri 3/16/18	52		$0.00
6	Deployment Phase	1 day	Mon 3/19/18	Mon 3/19/18			$400.00
6.1	Deploying System in Bilblio Environment	1 day	Mon 3/19/18	Mon 3/19/18	53	Tester	$400.00
6.2	Deployment Complete	0 days	Mon 3/19/18	Mon 3/19/18	55		$0.00

Table 1: Schedule of the Proposed Project

(Source: Created by Author)

The project schedule of the proposed project management visualizes five phases. This phases are also consisting of different sub-tasks. The chart shows the time frame for each of the tasks including the phases. The predecessor implies the task after which the project task will be carried out. This schedule will be provided to all of the project team members so that all the members can identify its job related data accurately. Within the Gantt chart, the resources (only the human resources) has been considered. Some of the tasks are carried out by single member and some are done collaboratively. The project is consisting of more than 50 activities.

Conclusion:

From the above study it can be concluded that the Gantt chart is a very special technique of making the project schedule. As it can be seen the project is a very lengthy project. For this reason the project management software has been used for developing the system instead of spread sheet. The project management software allowed to auto calculate the timing of the project based on the task duration and predecessor. Project schedule will serve as a great source of managing the project tasks for the Bilbio Information System project. A lot of a supervisor’s workday is spent putting out flames. There appear to be such a large number of crises that you and no one but you can react to. Bunch’s notable time administration grid shows the four classifications of time consumption, including that notorious “fire” classification. As the human resources required for the project has been bee represented through the chart, the project manager now can concentrate on the project core activities without having any second thoughts about the resource allocation. In the field of time administration, lumping enables you to arrange your undertakings such that you deal with comparable exercises at a specific time.

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