A Gantt Chart Alternative – Gantt Box Chart

Have you ever worked on a project which has a plan? What is your experience like?

Let me tell you what my experience is like:

The project plan was changed dozens of times. Delivery dates, shipping dates, testing dates or any other important milestones were constantly revised, sometimes until the last week. Uncertainty seemed to be the biggest problem project managers spent their time on. My managers worked hard to avoid unpleasant surprises.

And this is where the ubiquitous gantt charts often fail.

• A gantt chart based project plan assumes that there is only one possible end date for each activity.

In real world, the end date for each project activity depends on various factors like productivity, progress of other tasks, extra work, employee mood etc.. Thus, the end dates are best expressed in a format like {best case, realistic case, worst case} instead of just one date.

So I am boldly proposing a new type of project plan, henceforth to be called as,

…wait for it…

Gantt Box Chart

Think of Gantt Box Chart as a holy matrimony between Gantt Chart with Box Plot. The Gantt Box Chart shows uncertainty in project activity end dates by clearly showing 3 end-dates instead of one in the familiar box plot format. The end dates (best case, realistic or plan and worst case) are encoded as a box while the start date is shown as a dot.

Here is how a Gantt Box Chart looks like:

Despite the ugly name, I think the chart is very useful because,

• It shows the uncertainty in plan, very clearly
• It is as easy to read since we follow the Box Plot protocol
• It lets manager focus on the most uncertain portions of project, quickly
• It is new, so the chances of it getting neglected by everyone in boardroom are less 😀

I have summarized few additional observations you can get from a Gantt Box Chart here:

How to make a Gantt Box Chart in Excel?

I will be showing a way to create the gantt box charts in excel on Monday (12th July). Meanwhile, feel free to discuss this new chart and share what you think.

What do you think about Gantt Box Chart?

Would you use Gantt Box Chart for your next project or is this a little too much? What do you think about my proposal? Please share using comments.

Related: Project Management using Excel – an extensive collection of resources, templates, tutorials and ideas for project managers using excel.