Slide 29 of 61
Notes:
Please refer to figure A.3 on page 604 of the textbook for the following descriptions (the authors apologize that the figure is not available at this time). Figure A.1 is presented as a slide and can be used as as suitable replacement for discussion purposes.
- The solid black bars are summary tasks that represent project phases that are further decomposed into other tasks.
- The red and blue bars represent detailed tasks. The length represents the duration of the task. The bar is positioned according to its planned start and finish dates. The color, in Microsoft Project is significant as follows.
- Red bars indicate tasks have been determined to be ‘critical’ to the schedule meaning that any extension to the duration of those tasks will delay other tasks and the project as a whole.
- Blue bars indicate tasks that are not ‘critical’ to the schedule meaning that they have some slack time during which delays will not impact other tasks and the project as a whole.
- The red and blue arrows indicate prerequisites between detailed tasks. The red arrows define the project’s critical path — the sequence of tasks that determine the project’s final completion date.
- The diamonds indicate milestones. Milestones are events that have no duration. They signify the end of some significant phase or deliverable.
Notice that Gantt charts clearly depict the overlap of scheduled tasks. Because systems development tasks frequently overlap, this is a major advantage.
