🚧 Project Management

Project Gantt Chart

Gantt chart is a basic project management tool; see this helpful summary from Atlassian for a more comprehensive descriptio with fancy pictures.

Feel free to use a spreadsheet or LaTeX to make your Gantt chart. No fancy software necessary!

For your project, a Gantt chart will help you to:

• split your project into larger chunks, called “Work Packages” (WP);
• split your WPs into smaller steps or “tasks”;
• figure out the sequence of the tasks and WPs;
• schedule tasks and WPs on a quarterly (3 month) basis.

During our progress meetings, we will review your progress against your Gantt chart. If you can, bring an updated Gantt chart to your progress meeting; alternatively, we can revise your chart during the meeting.

You will slip behind the estimates in your initial Gantt chart.

This happens to everyone! Since Gantt charts are never right, a lot of people think they are useless, but:

• We will use the progress meeting to identify why there was a delay in a task and what we can do to avoid one next time,
• We will compare your time estimates for completed tasks with reality to learn to revise project estimates,
• We will learn to prioritise tasks and WPs towards the end of your project.

This will make you better at managing projects.