Gantt chart: Keeping project workstreams on track

On July 5, 2009, in Innovation, Project management, Slide examples, by Vijay Goel, M.D.

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Gantt Chart

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The Gantt chart is a staple of project management today.  It allows for the easy-to-communicate view of major workstreams and the interconnections of key milestones across workstreams.  When paired with a weekly project status update, the Gantt chart is a key tool to keeping projects on track.

Beware, however, with Gantt charts that you keep the functional requirements in mind– I’ve seen too many projects where project managers deliver on time with something that doesn’t meet the needed objectives.  A dead-on-arrival deliverable isn’t helpful to anyone.

How it works:

The Gantt chart is used to show timelines against major workstreams and deliverables.

  • Workstreams: Workstreams are the major, bolded segments in the left column.  Each workstream will have associated deliverables and milestones
  • Deliverables: These are the concrete tasks and building blocks that need to be delivered.
  • Timelines: These are the times you expect the tasks to be in progress, with a marker for key milestones.  A solid line generally means a major focus, with dotted lines sometimes indicating followon work or potential for some secondary deliverables.
  • Lead/ Resources: Highlights who is accountable for delivering the work.  This is most helpful when tied to a functional budget, which lays out resources involved, key people/ assets engaged, and budget allocated

The Gantt chart gets its name from Henry Gantt, who popularized its use in the 1910-1915 period, where it was seen as a major breakthrough.

Today, the Gantt chart competes with other means of tracking projects, including software like Microsoft Project, online tools like Basecamp, and alternate forms of project management including Agile development.

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Portfolio of Initiatives

On June 27, 2009, in Innovation, R&D, Slide examples, by Vijay Goel, M.D.

Looking at your initiatives across the Portfolio of Initiatives ensures that you are balancing near-term incremental efforts with the game-changing investments (in both new capabilities as well as understanding of new trends).

Portfolio of Initiatives

A portfolio of initiatives, as discussed by McKinsey’s Lowell Bryan (I worked with Lowell in the New York Office) helps you balance near-term incremental efforts with the game-changing investments (in both new capabilities as well as understanding of new trends). Too much focus on incremental efforts, and you’ll find yourself unprepared as markets and technology evolve. Too much focus on disruptive efforts, and you’ll find your team too distracted to convert near-term wins. Therefore, it’s important to appropriately balance efforts across your portfolio of initiatives.

A CEO can think about corporate strategy not as a “portfolio of businesses” but as a “portfolio of initiatives” aimed at achieving favorable outcomes for the entire enterprise. Usually, these initiatives will be organized around themes—”convoys” if you please—focused on achieving particular aspirations, such as increasing the global reach of the enterprise, entering a new but related industry, or achieving the industry’s lowest marginal cost of production. Portfolio effects increase the likelihood that some of these aspirations will be achieved even if many others fail.

The chart is a 3×3 graph with axes of Risk and Time to Maturity.  The time to maturity bucket is fairly straightforward to most.  The definition of Risk is more interesting– it’s divided into 3 categories:

  • Familiar
  • Unfamiliar
  • Uncertain

This approach reflects the thinking that if you aren’t failing, you aren’t trying very hard.  If you’re really investing in new territory, the goal is toimprove uncertainty and familiarity with experience in the space– that experience is captured via successful initiatives and the learnings from unsuccessful initiatives.  Hence, even if initial experiments fail, the portfolio benefits from the experience.

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