Use Gantt Charts and Avoid Disaster

By: Steve Wilheir Click author's name for more of his/her articles

Indirectly, a construction company failed and then ultimately died because Gantt charts were never maintained for its project. The company was hit with big penalties and charges and gradually had to shut down construction, which was already behind schedule by fifteen months.

A Gantt chart is a type of bar chart that illustrates a project schedule from the start to the finish. Some Gantt charts also show the dependency relationships between activities for a smooth work flow to take effect. Hence, I strongly propose the use of Gantt Charts for better management. There are practical examples of how companies even today are falling into receivership, partially due to not inculcating such helpful techniques as Gantt Charts.

Penalty Charges
The original contract did not include a dated CP (critical path) for the project. When the original specification was amended, changes to the project's completion date could not be calculated. As a result, penalties were incurred when the project's completion was delayed by approximately fifteen months.

The company was required to show the following in order to contest imposition of penalty charges:
1-The hand over date as agreed to in the initial contract as per the original specification could have easily been met.
2-The customer’s proposals for additional tasks to be undertaken midway through the construction process, entailed requirement of additional man hours to be put in, which resulted in the end date getting extended.

They just had a few spreadsheets giving out the tasks undertaken: with each change, a new spreadsheet was added. The differences from the original plan were not shown on the spreadsheets, nor was the impact on the end date on account of such changes shown.

Would A Gantt Chart Have Helped?
A Gantt Chart would have performed as a gauge for keeping track of the progress if one had been established at the contract phase. The additional jobs which needed to be completed by the company could have been factored in and the length of the existing jobs could have been altered if and when the client asked for changes in the provisions; the slippage in the surrender date would have been plainly evidenced by this. The client might have been asked to consent to an adjusted finish date and then sign a revision to the existing contract.

Without project management tools to document its position, the firm could not document the reason for the delays were not its performance. However not having these tools in place for complex projects is itself a performance issue.

When called upon to supervise a time-bound project on behalf of a customer, there is a need to use of appropriate tools such and Gantt and other charts to monitor the progress and plan out the effect of changes in circumstances will have on the work, and inform all concerned about such changes.

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About The Author: Steve Wilheir is a marketing and management consultant. Consult these resources to learn more about Gantt Diagrams, Pert Diagrams, and Project Management Software.