Remodeling | Operations, Planning: Projects that get behind schedule eat into your company's profit and upset clients. To avoid these pains and help keep projects on schedule, remodelers can use Gantt charts and pre-job conferences, consultant Michael Stone advises.
17 comments:
This is great. I had to admit that I had no idea what a Gantt chart was until I came to grad school. I’ve never had to use one before. It makes easy work the task of organizing projects or parts of a project into a physical timeline that can quickly be referenced in terms of element due dates and when things need to move. Having deadlines is nice. Constantly being reminded of them is nicer. Means I don’t have an excuse when I’ve missed a deadline. I knew it was there. I also like the pre-job conferences. It means that everyone is on the same page from the beginning and I also like the periodic check ins along the way to make sure that everyone is on task towards completion. This is also an accountability thing. It helps keep the bosses up to date but it also helps hold me accountable to the promises I made when I those deadlines were set. There are other tips and tricks that I have learned over the years that are not mentioned in the article. I would suggest that people utilize google for ideas and come up with a plan that works for them and their organization. It’s worked for me, so far. Now where did I put my planner?
I have never heard of a Gantt chart before but it definitely seems like a great strategy for project management. Though I don’t think having this chart is some sort of be all end all solution to managing projects because you can never plan everything and having a healthy dose of chaos theory doesn’t hurt. What this chart and article is really emphasizing is the importance of planning and communication and in my opinion that is really the crux of project management. How the person in charge deals with that I think depends largely on the person in charge and the size of the project that is being managed. For a very large company a project manager trying to chart everything any human has to do would be nearly impossible and really micro-managing. I can certainly agree that this method could work great for some people and could be scaled up in certain ways to help manage a larger company. The three major things I drew from the article was the importance of preplanning, deadlines, and writing things down, nothing particularly earth-shattering but good tactics for sure.
We love a GANTT chart! Though I can not say that I have ever actually used one in real life, a GANTT chart is a great way to visualize timelines and critical path in a very simple way. However, GANTT charts can be a little difficult when people get ahead or behind in any way, since it is somewhat dependent on tasks being completed by a certain time, and that is not always the case. Despite the fact that it may not remain entirely accurate, it still forces the creator of the chart to think of the critical path of the project and take note of which tasks should theoretically get completed first, or which tasks might take the longest amount of time to complete. Someday, I will successfully create and use a GANTT chart in real life, but sadly I do not think that day will come while I am still pursuing a career in stage management.
First of all, I love how much the author of this article seems to love gantt charts. This article give the gannt chart a short and basic summary of how one would use a gannt chart to stay on schedule in a project. After learning about them in one of my classes, I agree that they can be most effective at seeing where you should be in the process and how each action should relate and each other. When we built a gantt chart in class, we didn't set up the chart by employee, but by sub projects within the main project. This made it helpful to see what needed to get built when and how it related to the other parts, whether it needed to get done first or after another element. I think a problem that might arise from separating it by person is that if that person's assigned project takes longer or shorter to complete, it would be more difficult to see how that affects others.
I love gantt charts so much. If I’m cooking a fancy dinner with multiple dishes I rewrite all the recipes as a gantt chart to see what I can parallelize and also to make sure that I start all the dishes at the right time for them to all come out of the oven/ finish cooking simultaneously so nothing gets cold. I agree that a big part of making gantt charts effective is not leaving out any steps, because then it functions as a to-do list along with keeping you on schedule. I’ve never really used gantt charts to compare projects, but it makes a lot of sense. A couple of my friends always make a gantt chart of their entire semester with all their classes as a row and all the projects marked for each class, which I’ve never found necessary given the set up time but could definitely be beneficial. Overall, if you haven’t used gantt charts for either your personal or professional life, you should give them a go.
I've had mixed experiences with Gantt charts. On the one hand as this author describes they are a tool for good and can be great when working on large projects with many people with the need for specific deadlines and goals to be reached. However, they also can become very micromanagey if you are not careful, and unless you build it in while creating the chart, it leaves very little "oops" room for when Murphy's law comes into play. However, for the right kind of task, I think it is absolutely a great thing to have in an office. Like many schedules, however, it takes time, and this specific chart tends to take more time than I find effective. That's the one big thing that really makes me turn away from the Gantt chart. At some point you have to stop managing the way things SHOULD be and work on how things actually are.
It’s nice to see how people are constantly trying to improve scheduling systems, however I always see these methods to have flaws. Like many other scheduling, the Gantt system works on creating optimal efficiency in time scheduling. This extreme organization of projects can help easily answer common questions on trying to figure out who is doing what, and visually be able to see upcoming deadlines. I am sure this schedule will be helpful on this front, however the schedulers will need to be extremely diligent in making sure all projects are up to date. Having open space in a workers schedule will make it feel easier to assign more, however not all things can be done in time due to unavoidable circumstances, and if people become overbooked, the smallest glitch can set back an entire schedule. All tools are only as good as the people who use them, and no system should be blindly trusted. Everybody has to use their noggin.
I really feel that the best way to get back on your schedule is to start to get back to work as soon as possible. Procrastinating isn't helpful in any sense.
In this case it is amazing how some people and companies are trying to come up with solutions to help people to get back on their schedule.
Being behind in work isn't helpful in the way that it reduces the efficiency of ones work since the concentration of the person's work is focused on the previous work which affects the present work's efficiency, which no firm would like to witness.
every firm needs efficiency in the work that they require from their employees. in this case, it is very important for the employees to concentrate and be on time with their work.
it is for this reason that I feel that companies are making an effort to help their employees in getting back to thier back in time.
Gantt charts are my life, I started reading this article to tag and flag it and immediately got sucked in. I have always been a strong believer in the functionality and perspective a Gantt chart can provide in many situations. one can easily adjust the resolution to stand for overall projects or individual tasks depending on the scope of the conversation and or direction needed at the time. I did greatly appreciate the level of detail that they talked about going into and how that detail can help the worker in completing the tasks on time. The second part of the article talked about setting a pre-job meeting, which we are all fond of our meetings in our own ways, I think this has the potential to be a great thing. any meeting can be greatly beneficial if it is run effectively and kept on target with its intended goal. sometimes I feel as though we don't do this well enough to bring everyone up to speed with the current state of the project.
Hmmm these tactics look familiar. It is amazing to me how applicable the world of theatre can be to other fields. Now I know that Gantt charts and effective planning didn’t begin in theatre, but I have been fortunate enough to be involved in theatres and organizations that use these methods. Hey can be very effective. I thought is wa interesting that some of the comments suggest that just “doing” is enough to not get behind. However in companies that are working at such large scales with multiple projects, just doing may not be enough. Taking the extra time to plan through projects and ones time sets you up for greater success and can change the game. Thinking smarter is what is often required, not just a “can do” attitude.
This article is very interesting because in Technical Direction one we are currently budgeting for labor. Reading this article as we are working on budgeting is extremely useful as it gives more ideas and options on how to stay on track. In Carnegie scenic with so many projects being worked on the same time, it is important to stay on track. I liked the idea about a Gantt chart. Before the first day you have ever job and who is going to complete it. I think this would extremely vital to use in theatre. If we wrote out and assign jobs before we even start I think will make everyone stay on track better. One issue to this is if the designer does not finish designing before build starts. Also, this can cause problems if there are certain variables like if the lumber order is wrong or someone gets sick or can’t do crew. I think we should start moving towards something like this at Carnegie scenic.
I really liked how instead of just preaching that everything in the article will solve all of your problems, this article simply put forward two tools that you could use to help prevent and manage problems instead. I like the idea of the chart, and think it has many useful applications as part of the planning and organizational processes, but I was much more interested in the second half of the article. I also really appreciated how instead of simply stating what to do, the author actually explained why and how theses planning steps are useful by mentioning that it is much better to spend a little extra time in the beginning of the process than deal with late deliveries and scheduling hiccups down the line. I definitely support this idea, and think that extra time spent planning and talking to the client about expectations and deliverables is always time well spent.
So in the real world, Scheme is called a Gantt chart. Good to know. I take issue with the number of times the author recommends calling people, though. I have tried a number of different approaches with employees and vendors, and I have been engaged as an employee and vendor in a number of different ways. From my experience, unless there have been changes, people do not appreciate being called three times to remind them that they are supposed to show up to work. Vendors (particularly lumber yards) also just don't have time for that level of interaction, and it can give them the impression that you don't trust them to do their jobs properly, which sours the relationship.
Ali is right up there in saying that the best advice is presentation of tools not specific instruction. People are never going to be able to respond in the same way to all things so as well as something worked for you, it means nothing about how well it will work for me. I also agree that calling vendors or bugging people in that way will probably come off a little naggy which if you don't care about maintaining the relationship is fine but I think we all do care to a certain extent. It was nice here that we got a little of why things worked for the author, and maybe for us, rather just that they did work and you should trust him. It my time at CMU I have read a lot of self help books or leadership books and what makes the great ones stand out is that they help you create your own best way to be successful rather than conforming to a mold that is already there for you.
Gantt charts are surprisingly used in more applications than one might expect. When I first got to college and saw one of these charts for the first time I was under the impression that CMU coined the chart specifically for our season. It is interesting to hear how different industries use the chart and the various parallels there are between a season calendar and one that is designed for remodeling houses.
Overall, I would say that this is a tool that is only as good as the person who made it. One of my biggest problems with our calendar is how structured it gets and how little forgiveness it has when a project starts to fall behind. I’m sure many people would say that you shouldn't fall behind in the first place but when you have a calendar that relies on so many different moving parts, it is hard to keep a document like this airtight.
These techniques are very similar to the ones we use (or try to use) in Carnegie Scenic to try and keep everything on schedule. We don’t often use Gantt charts themselves, but instead implement very similarly styled checklists and schedules. And technically, you could consider our production calendar a Gantt chart in a way. I know we often use Gantt charts in class projects, and it would be interesting to migrate over the a Gantt chart system in the office for a little bit and see what that would mean for our productivity. As for the pre-job conference, this type of meeting seems very similar to a put to detail. Where the project manager/office who ‘bid’ the show are now talking through every detail with the designer (client) to hand off to the job lead (production). This level of communication is vital to making sure every detail of the project is caught.
While this article was written for remodeling projects, I think the strategies it describes have very useful applications in theatre as well. Creating schedules that describe exactly what needs to happen on each day and who will be responsible for each task is a useful idea for stage managers/production managers/technical directors to keep the build phase going according to plan, and ‘pre-job conferences’ are very much necessary to keep the different creative teams on the same page. These are strategies that are usually already implemented in theaters, but it is useful to see them laid out and explained.
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