Mobile App Part 3 (Risk)

Gantt and PERT Charts

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Gantt and PERT Charts

The Gantt chart and PERT chart are important in project management and can be applied to a number of situations to provide a view of the project. The two charts are also applicable and beneficial to project management based on the type and size of a project. They therefore have pros and cons and one cannot select one over the other without considering a number of factors. The advantage of using a Gantt chart over a PERT chart is that it provides a good view of the project details including the progress status which the PERT chart does not show (Ahmad, 2013). When using a Gantt chart, it is possible to see the progress of various tasks of a project and other details like resources and goals. Gantt charts are also convenient where there are few tasks as compared to PERT charts. With few tasks in a project, one is able to develop full details and a nice view of the project.

PERT chart on the other hand is advantageous over Gantt chart in that it encourages the view of the critical path in the project. It easily provides the early starts and finish for various tasks of a work breakdown structure hence allowing the project manager or user to identify the project slack. As opposed to the Gantt chart, PERT chart has the ability to present make the dependencies of a project to be visible. Work breakdown structure contains elements with certain relationships which the PERT chart displays perfectly while the Gantt chart cannot display these relationships (Ahmad, 2013).

Gantt charts are appropriate to when simplicity is needed and project progress details. Gantt chart will help provide project progress details in a simpler way as compared to the PERT chart. Gantt charts are also very effective in small project where much details where much details can be presented in the visual without any problem. PERT charts on the other hand are very helpful in situations that need assessment of the critical path of a project. It is also good in situations that require lots of analysis on aspects like project slack, start and finish dates. Additionally, PERT charts are also needed and applicable in situation which require one to establish interdependence among various elements of a work breakdown structure.

Critical path is the path which contain the series of project tasks whose total duration is longer than all other paths (Ahmad, 2013). Critical path is significant in a project because it determines the activities of the project which cannot be delayed without having an impact in the whole project’s schedule. It is therefore helpful and significant in determining tasks which need more resources and proper management.

Gantt Chart

PERT CHART

Mobile App project status

Based on the status updated in the project schedule, there are a number of activities that have been completed and others are scheduled to be completed in the future. There are also four tasks that are behind schedule because they are not 100% complete and yet their finish dates have passed. These activities are;

1. Communication management which is 24% complete and finish date passed.

2. Risk management plan is only 75% developed and the finish date has also passed.

3. Evaluation of existing processes on only 75% underway,

Among these tasks, creation of a communication plan is one of the critical tasks hence there is great impact on the project’s completion date.

References

Ahmad, S. H., Bon, A. T., Rasi, R. M., Zuraidah, R., & Sie-Long, K. (2013). Project management scheduling through integrated PERT and Gantt Chart.