Sigma Magic Help Version 17

GANTT Chart

Overview

A GANTT chart is a bar chart showing a graphical representation of the project schedule. It can show information about the project, such as tasks, start and completion dates, activity precedence, owner of activities, and the status of each action item, and help the team identify the project's current status versus its baseline. A GANTT chart can identify the critical path so the team can focus on those activities to help deliver the project on time. A GANTT chart is one of the integral reports generated by the project manager to not only keep the project on track but also to share the project status with other stakeholders quickly.

This tool can be added to your active workbook by clicking on Project and then selecting Project Plans > GANTT Chart.

Inputs

Click on Analysis Setup to open the menu options for this tool.

Setup

A sample screenshot of the setup menu is shown below.

1	Scheduling Method: Specify the method that you would like to use to schedule the project dates. The available methods are: Option Description Auto For Auto scheduling, the software will determine the start and end dates for each activity based on the duration you enter for each activity and the project start date. Manual For Manual scheduling, you will need to provide the start and end dates for each activity yourself. The software will estimate the duration of each activity based on the dates you enter.
2	Date Format: Specify the format in which dates are entered for this analysis. This depends on the format the users are comfortable with and can change from region to region. The following options are available: Option Description dd-mm-yyyy Here, we have the date followed by the month and then the year. The separator between these fields could be either period (.), dash (-), or slash (/). mm-dd-yyyy Here, we have the month followed by the date and then the year. The separator between these fields could be either period (.), dash (-), or slash (/). yyyy-mm-dd Here, we have the year followed by the month and then the date. The separator between these fields could be either period (.), dash (-), or slash (/).
3	Completion Status: Specify if you would like to show the completion status of the activities on the GANTT chart. The percentage completion is displayed on the GANTT chart if you show the completion status. This information is obtained from the data you enter in the worksheet in the Status column.
4	Show Links: Specify if you want to show the links between the different activities. The links between activities are specified on the worksheet using the Predecessor column. If no predecessors are specified, there will not be any links to display between the activities.
5	Bar Colors: Specify how you want to color the bars in the GANTT chart. You have several options to show the colors, but you can only choose one option at a time for the colors. You can create multiple GANTT charts and view the different colors if you want different views. The options for the colors are: Option Description Critical All items that are on a critical path are shown in one color. If you choose based on the critical path, then any activity on the critical path is displayed in red, and other activities are shown in grey. Phase All items that belong to the same phase are shown in the same color. If you choose to color based on phase, the activity number determines the color. All activities that have the same top-level WBS number will have the same color. For example, if there are three activities: 1.1, 1.2, 2.1. Then, the first two activities have the same top-level WBS of 1; the third has a top-level WBS of 2. So, the first two activities will have the same color. Resource All items that belong to the same resource are shown in the same color. Status All items that belong to the same status are shown in the same color. Any activity behind is shown in red, in-process activities in yellow, and completed activities in green.
6	Show Resources: Show the resource names next to the bars.
7	View Example: Click on this button to open the example file. You can view the example to get an idea of how to fill out this tool, or you can use the example as a starting point and modify it to meet your project needs.
8	Help Button: Click on this button to view the help file for this topic.
9	Cancel Button: Click on this button to cancel your changes and exit this dialog box.
10	Create Design: If this is your first time using this template, click this button to format the worksheet template. You can also update the worksheet format any time, but remember that you may lose any data entered on this worksheet. Once you are happy with the worksheet template layout, you must enter any required data on the worksheet. When the data entered into the worksheet is complete, you can click on Analysis Setup and then Compute Outputs to generate analysis results.
11	Analyze Design: Click on this button to save all changes and compute the outputs for this analysis. Review the results of your analysis and make changes to your inputs if required to update analysis results.

Display

A sample screenshot of the display menu is shown below.

1	Major Unit: Specify the time-scale for plotting the GANTT chart. For this section, you need to specify the chart's major and minor units. Pick the appropriate scale to view the project timeline on the GANTT chart. You can pick the major units as Years, Quarters, Months, or Weeks.
2	Minor Unit: The major units are further subdivided into minor units, and you can pick the minor units as Quarters, Months, Weeks, or Days. etc.
3	Display Start: Specify the start date for your GANTT chart view. Any data before this date will be hidden and not displayed on the GANTT chart.
4	Display End: Specify the end date for your GANTT chart view. Any data after this date will be hidden and not displayed on the GANTT chart.
5	Project Start: Specify the start date for "Auto" scheduling. This data will automatically determine the rest of the dates based on the data you enter on the worksheet. Note that the software uses the standard "As Soon As Possible" approach to determine the project dates. The other option to schedule is to plan activities "As Late As Possible," but this is not recommended since things start to slip if you plan to do the activities at the last minute (Murphy's law in action).
6	Num Tasks: Specify the number of tasks in your process. This information is used to reformat your worksheet and create a table for data entry. Note that any data below this table will be cleared.

Calendar

A sample screenshot of the calendar menu is shown below.

1	Working Days: Specify the working days for the company. This information will be used to create the auto schedule.
2	Holidays: Specify any holidays here separated by semi-colon. All these dates will be skipped during auto-scheduling.
3	Calendar: Apply a specific calendar to the plan. This is not currently implemented.
4a	Days/Year: This factor is used to convert between year and days. So, if you specify duration as 1Y, then this factor will be used to determine the number of days for this activity.
4b	Days/Quarter: This factor is used to convert between quarters and days. So, if you specify duration as 1Q, then this factor will be used to determine the number of days for this activity.
4c	Days/Month: This factor is used to convert between month and days. So, if you specify duration as 1m, then this factor will be used to determine the number of days for this activity.
4d	Days/Week: This factor is used to convert between week and days. So, if you specify duration as 1w, then this factor will be used to determine the number of days for this activity.
4e	Days/Hour: This factor is used to convert between hours and days. So, if you specify the duration as eighth, then this factor will be used to determine the number of days for this activity.

Worksheet

Enter the following information on the worksheet:

• In the first column, enter the WBS structure of each activity. For example, the first activity could be 1; its sub-activities could be 1.1, 1.2, etc.
• Next, specify the type of activity. If you leave it blank or select "A, " the activity is shown as a bar. If you choose "M," then that activity is shown as a milestone and is represented by a diamond on the GANTT chart.
• Briefly describe the activity in the Task column.
• If you specify "Auto" scheduling in options, specify the duration for each activity. If you specify "Manual" scheduling, specify each activity's start and end dates. You can enter an integer (say 14) when specifying the duration. It will refer to 14 days. This is the minimum unit in this software; you cannot use this package to plan for hours or minutes! If you want to specify the duration as two weeks, you can enter 2w as the duration. Similarly, you can specify 1y (for one year), ten h (for Ten hours - will be converted to days based on an 8-hour workday), 3m (for months), 1q (for a quarter), etc. When you enter dates in the software, always ensure that you enter the dates in mm/dd/yyyy format.
• Specify the predecessors for each activity. You can enter the numbers from the first column as the predecessors. You can enter multiple predecessors separated by a semi-colon. You can also introduce lags by adding 10d to the predecessor. For example, if you specify the predecessor as 1 + 15w, the start date for this activity will be the end date of activity 1 with a positive lag of 15 weeks. You can introduce both lags and leads in the predecessor column. For example, specify the predecessor as 3;4 -7d. Then, the system will look up the end dates for activities 3 and 4, look at the last completion date, and then schedule the current activity seven days before that date.
• Specify the person responsible for that activity in the Owner column.
• Finally, you can select the information about activity status. You can pick the following options: Cancelled, an activity not started, an activity has started, the status of the activity completion (25%, 50%, 75%), or completed. Note that we have only provided limited options for activity completion to ensure focus on project end dates. The activity's completion date is more important than the % completion status (which is only a rough indication of activity completion).

Verify

If you click the Verify button, the software will perform some checks on the data you entered. A sample screenshot of the dialog box is shown in the figure below. The software checks if you have correctly specified the input options and entered the required data on the worksheet. The results of the analysis checks are listed on the right. If the checks are passed, they are shown as green-colored checkmarks. If the verification checks fail, they are shown as a red-colored cross. If the verification checks result in a warning, they are shown in the orange exclamation mark. Finally, any checks that are required to be performed by the user are shown as blue info icons.

1	Item: The left-hand side shows the major tabs and the items checked within each section
2	Status: The right-hand side shows the status of the checks.
3	Overall Status: The overall status of all the checks for the given analysis is shown here. The overall status check shows a green thumps-up sign if everything is okay and a red thumps-down sign if any checks have not passed. Note that you cannot proceed with generating analysis results for some analyses if the overall status is not okay.

Outputs

Click on Compute Outputs to update the output calculations. A sample screenshot of the worksheet is shown below. If any errors are encountered during the analysis, they are reported at this point. The overall percentage completion status of the project is displayed at the top. Following are some possible errors that you may encounter:

• Dates are missing or have not been entered in the right format.
• Predecessors have been entered incorrectly.
• Predecessors are entered to form a loop, and the system cannot determine the "Auto" scheduled dates.

The only output from this analysis is the % completion status shown at the top. The main output of this analysis is the developed GANTT chart. If there are no error messages, the following sample message is displayed.

Notes

Here are a few pointers regarding this analysis:

• If you encounter an error while generating the GANTT chart, ensure that you have provided the right inputs, then try again.
• Make sure to enter the dates in the right format. The system will read the dates based on the format you specify and not based on the settings you may have on your computer (through system dates). Internal analysis is done using system dates, but external input & output will be based on the format you specify on the input dialog box.
• If the output of the GANTT chart is too narrow or too wide, you can select the range of interest and adjust the column width to adjust the width as you would like it. Currently, this has to be done manually.
• You must stick to this format for all dates you enter in the analysis. For example, if you specify the date format as "dd-mm-yyyy," then you need to enter the dates in the dialog box and any inputs on the worksheet in this format. The system cannot always check if you have entered the dates correctly; however, it will report an error if it encounters a date that does not make sense. It would be best to fix these dates before you can continue the analysis.

Examples

The following examples are in the Examples folder.

• Create a GANTT chart for the data given in the attached file (GANTT 1.xlsx).

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