Gantt Charts

An article by Alex Wilkinson

WHAT & WHY?

Named after Henry Gantt (*pedant alert*) hence the use of a capital G, the man thought to be the inventor of the modern Gantt chart.

Gantt charts are a visual representation of what activities will happen in your project in order for it to achieve its aims. Usually a Gantt is developed from a detailed document called a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), this details every constituent part. For the purpose of putting together an academic led grant, we will ignore the WBS.

In a Gantt larger themes (work streams) are broken down into smaller meaningful activities (work packages), then arranged in order of conduct and linked together based on their dependency to other work packages.

The length of the work package bar on the chart is proportional to the amount of time it takes to complete. Gantt charts are presented with activities along the left hand side and with the rows representing individual actions. Along the top of the chart, moving from left to right is time in which the project will be conducted within (see my five minute tea making Gantt below!).

The act of pulling the information together for a Gantt chart tests how feasible and realistic it is for your project to get from A to B. The final outputted Gantt has to communicate all of this to your viewer in an easy to understand format.

Before you start hammering Excel or MS Project first consider answering these two questions:

• Who is your intended audience?
• What purpose will the Gantts serve for each audience?

If you have answered the two questions above you most likely will have said your audiences are the funder, project team members, partners and anyone else with a stake in the project. For the purpose your answer will most likely be that it will be different for each audience. You may have also picked out that the purpose will change depending on what stage the project proposal is at (outline/expression of interest stage and full stage) which is very true as different stages of the application have different space restrictions as per below.

• Outline applications only allow one to two pages of supplemental information. Available space for a Gantt? Half to a third of a page
• Full applications tend to allow for one to two pages space specifically dedicated for a Gantt

Tea making, a water fall approach. Less than five minutes effort in PowerPoint.

Time Saver - Go top down then bottom up

Save yourself time and do this for a painless way to organise a team to develop a initial draft Gantt and Milestone Criteria.

Speak to your business manager, have them confirm and validate your unmet need/gap, if you have IP and that you have the necessary proof of concept work completed. Pull in your commercialisation manager and project manager into discussions and get them to agree what the likely product development plan will be (to take your idea from now to being sold in the market) and how long it will take. Write this down and include any "fuzzy requirements" things that you need to work out on your way during development (*Fuzzy back-end is a legitimate new product development process for when you need more information to make an appropriate final decision. It is not a skin complaint*). In general the long term product development will go from high-risk & low budget with minimal industry involvement to low(er)-risk & high budget with significant industry involvement.

Now assemble the project team in front a white board. Draw out a simple timeline for your product development plan and present it to the project team. The example below took less than five minutes, and whilst it presents an oversimplified view of a complex challenge it focused the team into recognising the sorts of things we should be thinking about for Project 1.

The rough master plan! Took less than 10 minutes with the *right people* in the room.

Once the team agree to what Project 1 is ask them what you will want to have achieved at the end to progress development. Write these achievements down on the right side of the white board. Then get the team to agree on no more than five main work themes (e.g. regulatory, commercialisation, design & prototyping, manufacturing, and clinical evaluation) to achieve these aims. These work streams will naturally coalesce around key team members (work stream leaders!). Write these down on the left hand side of the white board. Now ask the team to start filling in the big blocks of work (e.g. design and build the device, test and validate device, scale up manufacturing process, manufacturer). If working from project start to end causes problems, switch to working from project end to start. Repeat this process but this time fill in the specifics of how each of the big blocks of work will be achieved. Now draw any key links between bits of work that need to be observed (e.g. I am not paying the manufacturer down-payment until the prototype hardware has been through at least two testing cycles!).

Stand back, and see if any natural Go/No-Go points occur in the plan (these we call Milestones), below are some examples:

• Obtaining regulatory or ethical approvals.
• Last patient last visit or database lock for a clinical trial.
• An end of series of activities that must provide satisfactory answers before you can move on (experimental).
• The point before work is moved to an external party such as a sub-contractor (hence costs and risks are higher).
• The point before you need to hire new staff or buy in expensive items which have a set shelf life (lab consumables or rented equipment which has a sizeable monthly charge). You do not want to be paying for something or someone to sit around doing nothing then leave or expire before you have your work completed!

Draw a line from top to bottom on the whiteboard where these points occur, stuff to be completed before on the left and following work on the right of each line.

Now ask the team how much time they need for the work to achieve each of these Milestones.

Go back through each Milestone and consider the risks of the preceding and subsequent activity from failing or achieving an unacceptable result. Ask the team the following questions:

• How can we reduce the probability of these problems occurring?
• How can we minimise the impact these problems have should they occur?

Write down these risks and solutions on a piece of paper.

Amend you work on the white board based on this exercise. Look to either reschedule, include extra time, people, resource or activities to address these issues.

Now ask the team the following questions:

• Who will do the work?
• What percentage of their time (%FTE) will be needed for the work?
• If you add up top to bottom each persons %FTE at any given moment, is it greater than 80%?
• If total %FTE at any time exceeds 80% then look to reassign people or rescheduled tasks further (resource smoothing!).

20%FTE is always assigned to do the sorts of things you never imagine/like/care for, however, are essential and often overlooked.  Like reading emails, chasing other people for responses, attending meetings, and keeping on top of your own training to be able to do your job. It could also be the reserve you need when things go really wrong and you need the team to pull together to get a job done.

Remember: - If you need an 80%FTE, quote 100%FTE to the Funder in the costs.

Write these percentages down on your work packages.

Beneath your work of art, write out your milestones on the left. Sub-divide each milestone by the key Go/No-Go criteria per work package.

Now ask the team the following questions:

• What would be an acceptable result allowing you to move forwards to the next activity, and why did you chose this parameter.
• What would be an ideal result and what would unacceptable results. An unacceptable result would mean either the work needed to be redone before the project could continue OR the whole programme needed to end as it would mean there could be no way forward.

Write this information down on the right of each Milestone.

Now take a photo of the whiteboard and share it with the wider team for a review. You have just completed your first working draft Gantt, Milestone criteria and Risk assessment with mitigation (pat on back).

gantt chart development

If you have completed the above steps you will now have a very good base in which you can start adding in more and more detail. Make sure your team review the Gantt a number of times and work to fill in any gaps. This will end up becoming your working draft in which all future Gantts are derived from.

Your pen and paper or annotated photo Gantt, will now need to turned into content for your application. The process goes like this:

• Make an infographic/simple Gantt for your Outline/EOI stage application
• If invited to full stage, turn your pen and paper working draft Gantt into a Project Gantt including everything you have learned, MS Project is good for this.
• Scaling back and tidying up your Project Gantt, turn this into you actual Full Stage application Gantt.

This way you will have created 1 x pen & paper Gantts, 1 x info-graphic style Gantt and 1 x MS Project Gantt. This is the shortest and least time consuming way of developing content for your project and application.

1. Working Draft Gantt

Target Audience: Project team, project partners and sub-contractors. The funder never sees this Gantt.

When: Created during project feasibility and planning stages.

Content: This is the draft master plan where the work is lumped together for achieving your project aims. This will inform your staff costs, recruitment, when you need to make large down-payments to secure facilities and focus you and the project team's mind as to the task to prioritise when you are lost in a miasma of activities.

Purpose: Contains all the details you need to put forward in a proposal that will scale up reliably from outline stage, to full stage and finally for running the project with.

Software: Only once you have received your notification that you are through to the full application stage, then use MS Project. This will save yourself time in the long-run as failed outline stage projects tend to typically only make it back to the panel six to eighteen months later and will have changed considerably. MS Project can be used to create the whole unfettered project, which can later be tidied up and scaled back easily to suite the full stage reviewing panel.

*DIRE WARNING* You will get penalised by the panel if your full stage proposal differs too much from outline stage. Plan with the bigger picture and more detail upfront then scale down to a level appropriate for your outline. This way your plan, people, costs and timings hold true from outline to final application.

2. Outline Application or Expression of Interest (EOI) Gantt Chart

Target Audience: Funding triage/outline panel.

When: Submitted with outline or EOI application.

Content: Info-graphic type Gantt using the limited space available. Target top level hygiene factors and any key risks (see below!) are addressed within the proposal.

Purpose: Conveys to the panel review that you know what you are doing, you have an excellent and well developed plan, which takes into consideration the full scope of the projects needs, costs, quality aspects and associated risks with mitigation.

Problems: Very limited space, as such limited detail can be provided. Readability can be an issue with reducing font sizes. Triage panel members will only look at this for less than 10 minutes. If its difficult to understand, hard to read, awkward or a mess then the odds are they will not bother and rely on the limited text available in your case for support to understand what is happening (not good).

Software: PowerPoint, LucidCharts or Excel. Create something simple then export it as a picture (snapshot tool) and embed it into the Word document. Add any extra text boxes, arrows or details inside Word later, this will mean you can scale back or forward to get a good final feel.

Typical space available on a single A4 page for a Gantt at outline stage. Not much space really......

Hygiene Factors and Risk Mitigation in a Gantt

Does your Gantt visually answer the following?

Hygiene Factors: These are the basics that must be addressed. Risk mitigation is a hygiene factor that deserves its own section.

Are all the pieces required to run the project present? Is there sufficient detail to give the impression of a well considered plan? Are the timings feasible? Are critical dependencies represented? Is the resource allocation realistic?

Risk Mitigation: If something fails what is the backup plan? Is all the money being spent early on? Are there any activities starting before key decision making points have been addressed? Do they know there is a 10 month lead time at the toxicology lab?

You can always put a note on the Gantt for things you cannot address in the limited space. e.g. "See Risks and Mitigation in section 2.1 of outline for full details", "See Justification of Resource in section 3.8 for staff/work package alignment".

3. Full Application Gantt Chart

Target Audience: Full funding panel

When: Submitted with final application

Content: This is a version of the Working Draft Gantt, a detailed Microsoft Project file taking full advantage of the space available (typically one to two A4 pages).

Purpose: Conveys exactly the same message as the Outline Gantt, however, this is the panel's opportunity to scrutinise the details underpinning your project plan. These details come from your worked up Draft Working Gantt.

Problems: MS Project is awkward to use. The native output is really ugly and requires considerable custom formatting and technical know-how to get a good result. The output leaves lots of dead space on the page which could be better utilised.

Software: MS Project combined with Adobe Acrobat DC or Photo-shop (free for TUoS staff!) and someone who knows what they are doing. SmartSheet, Wrike and other freemium software is Okishisish...

MS Project will output either a portrait (left image) or landscape (right image) document for you to submit.

Which should you choose?

If you favour a large number of activities then go with Portrait option, it does mean you need to do less post-processing in Adobe to fill-in missing content you could not easily display using MS Projects own in-built tools. Bear in mind that your activity column width on the left will be shorter meaning some activity descriptions may be cut off or drop an extra row which can look untidy.

*Warning* The "links" you put in will make your bars on the right side of the page look a complete mess if you are not careful. This is due to the compressed space the bars occupy.

If you favour showing dependencies between activities then go with Landscape option. The ample space should mean your "link" can be easily followed to the different activities. The downside as you can see from the above example is that you end up with a lot of poorly used space. This can be utilised by loading up the exported PDF into Adobe Acrobat DC or Photo-shop and in-filling the absent content.

*Warning* Having two separate workflows (MS Project then Adobe) doubles the time to re-version the content if changes are needed.

I prefer using the landscape setting, the spare space can be used to include a dependency or logic diagram, or contain a list of acronyms and their meanings.

4. Project Gantt Chart

Target Audience: The project team, contractors and anyone who has a stake in the project.

When: Once the funder stumps up the dosh and tells you to get cracking.

Content: This is a version of the Working Draft Gantt, a detailed Microsoft Project plan. You need to update the project start date with the true date, re-confirm all dates with parties at the kick off meeting.

Purpose: This is the stick that encourages the team forwards.

Problems: MS Project file requires someone to maintain it. Version control, requires knowledge of base lining and updating using MS Projects inbuilt tools. The main project plan should be kept under guard and only shown to academics as exported PDF's. (Top-tip: a Project Manager would be helpful in this instance).

Software: MS Project, no Adobe shenanigans are required.

Planning Tips

• Always use a pen and piece of paper first, its quicker and people will like you for it.
• Plan your overall program or product development strategy first, take an appropriate slice for your project.
• Follow the top-down, then bottom up planning approach to generate content for your project plan.
• Review and validate your planning decisions.
• Design the Gantt based on the audience, hygiene factors, risk factors and with the space available.
• Only use a computer when everything is planned out on a piece of paper or whiteboard first.
• Use the right tool.

Design tips

• Check your final output looks good in both colour and black & white print out.
• Upload, then download and check a copy of your content from any online application system. These systems can change the formatting of art work.
  • If online system formatting is an issue, export your content as an image, then convert to a PDF. The system will treat as an image rather than word document objects which it can alter.
• People are red-green colour blind, many colours do not look good when printed, some colours look the same when printed in black and white. Pick sensible colours
  • Visit ColourBrewer (http://colorbrewer2.org) for a website dedicated to helping you pick good colour choices.
• Shapes with strong colours with rounded edges look fun, friendly & informal. Shapes with sharp edges, thin borders and muted colours look formal or clinical.
• Turn on "show critical path" in MS Project Gantts to display the longest path (hence the most critical) through from start to finish.
• Don't re-invent, copy existing styles, colour palettes and formatting from well presented content.
• Windows "Snipping Tool" is an amazing and quick way of grabbing images off one program and pasting them into another.
• Always stick a footer with the PI's name, project ID or reference, and a page count (e.g. page x of y). Your content will get separated out and potentially lost by the reviewers. This will help them identify the order of pages and if they are missing any content.