2103 has been the most awesome year since starting Chandoo.org.
This year, more than 10 million people have visited Chandoo.org and took steps to become awesome. Every day of 2013 felt blessed, inspired and wholesome, thanks to your support, love and kindness. Thanks to my travels (USA & Malaysia), I could meet hundreds of our readers face to face and get to know them better.
Many many thanks to you for your support in 2013.
Apart from you, my reader, there are many others who helped me in the year 2013. This message is my way of thanking them.
People who helped me in 2013
Teachers & Gurus:
To run a business, web community & family it takes a lot of motivation, inspiration and energy. These people help me get that almost every day.
Excel Folks:
Hui, Jon Peltier, Debra Dalgleish, Mike Alexander, Dick Kuslieka, Rob Collie, Bill Jelen, Jordon Goldmeir, Colin Legg, Mike Girvin, Haseeb & Francis Hayes.
Forum Members:
SirJB7, Hui, Luke, Narayank, Bobhc, Debraj, Faseeh, Sajan, Shrivallabha, Kaushik and more. Special thanks to Jeff, Oldchippy & Smallman.
Business & Entrepreneurship:
James Altucher, MJ Demarco, Sir Richard Branson, MrMoneyMustache, Pat Flynn, Brandon Pearce
Authors & Books
Despite my travels, this year too I have managed to read a lot of books. Some of the authors & their notable books that inspired me are,
- Richard Branson – Losing my Virginity
- MJ Demarco – Millionaire Fast Lane
- Rob Collie – DAX formulas for Power Pivot (re-read many times)
- Eker T. Harv – Millionaire Mindset
- Joshua Foer – Moon-walking with Einstein
- Antonio Mendez – Argo
- George Mahood – Free Country
And many other…
Note: All the book links to Amazon are affiliate links. That means, if you purchase something after clicking on them, I get a few cents 
Partners, Affiliates & Supporters
Running a business that can meet needs of millions of users is a big task. Thanks to my partners, affiliates and supporters, 2013 seemed like a breeze. I want to thank,
Robert Collie & Family: People say it is hard to find new friends as you cross 30. But Rob & Jocelyn Collie proved it otherwise. I first met Rob on Twitter in 2012. In early 2013, I invited him to teach a guest lesson in my Power Pivot online class. But the real friendship happened when I planned my live classes in USA. Rob offered to help me with on-ground logistics & co-teaching the class on PowerPivot. We became very good friends as soon as I landed in Cleveland in early May. The 3 months we spent in USA would have been very boring & dull had it not been for the Collies. I am really thankful to their wonderful hospitality, sharing nature and kindness. You are truly a great family.
Ms Chan, Jacqueline Wong & rest at PentaWise, Malaysia: Early this year, I got an email from Ms Chan asking ‘if I can live conduct classes in Malaysia’. I replied with a resounding YES, as Malaysia has been on my list of countries to visit. Finally in first week of October, I went to Kuala Lumpur to conduct a week-long class on Advanced Excel, Dashboards & Power Pivot. The whole experience was marvelous, thanks to thoughtful & kind support from Ms Chan, Ms Wong & rest of the team at PentaWise. They are full of smiles, passion and enthusiasm. And of course, their hospitality is unbelievably good. Thank you for your support.
Our Partners
- EduPristine: Paramdeep, Pawan & team at EduPristine help us in numerous ways. Thanks for making Chandoo.org customers awesome in Financial Modeling etc.
- Plum Solutions: For supporting our cause and recommending our courses to lovely readers in Australia and worldwide.
- MrExcel.com: for supporting our cause and recommending our courses to their amazing audience.
Our Affiliates:
This year was great for many of our affiliates too. Thanks to their support, we had more customers and they had more revenues. Some of our most prominent affiliates are,
Dashboard Spy, Francis, Daniel Ferry, Debra Dalgleish, Philip, Ken Puls, Oscar, Jimmy Pena, Victor Chan, Alan Murray and many more.
Press:
Thanks to YourStory & Satya for featuring Chandoo.org story in their magazine.
Publisher:
Thanks to Amazon Kindle Platform for letting me publish my book.
Customers & Readers
This year, more than 6,000 of you blessed me with your product purchases from us. More than 79,000 of you are now part of our RSS / Newsletter community. Many more continue to join us each day. Thank you so much for inviting me in to your life & taking time to learn from us.
Many thanks to RTI.org, Robbins Company, Renault Nissan and many other corporate clients for supporting us this year.
I am also thankful to our Excel forum members.
Special thanks to,
- Attendees of my live classes in USA (Columbus, Chicago & Washington DC) & Malaysia.
- Bill Jelen, for treating me to a pizza, few beers and a lovely evening at their house. Also, lending me his computer desk & chair when I was in USA.
Our Staff:
Most of what we do at Chandoo.org not remotely possible without our staff. I am amazed at their level of commitment and support to our mission to make you awesome. My heartfelt thanks to,
- Ravindra: for helping with various training enrollment, emails & customer service
- Vijay: for teaching VBA, answering student questions & supporting our products.
- Sameer: for answering student doubts in training programs. It was sad to see you go.
- Sujatha: for providing customer care & email support.
- Pothi: for taking care of our server & site infrastructure
- Chittibadrayya: for taking care of all the book-keeping & accounting aspect of our business
Special thanks to Jo (our iPhone developer) too.
Websites & Companies that helped me in 2013
I am thankful to Microsoft for making Excel so awesome.
I am also thankful to,
Email & Productivity: Google, iPhone
Website, Hosting & E-commerce: WordPress, GoDaddy, Wishlist Member, KnownHost, Amazon, PayPal, E-Junkie, 2Checkout, EBS, GumRoad, FastSpring, Thesis
Community & Connection: Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Skydrive, pinterest
Software: Paint.NET, Mozy, Notepad ++, Camtasia & Snagit, Skype, Rescue Time
Apps: Pulse, Flipboard, Feedly, Amazon Kindle
There are many other software, companies and websites that help me every day. I am really thankful to each and every one of these. Detailed listing here.
Last but not least…
There is someone else that deserve utmost thanks for everything I do at Chandoo.org.
- My family: Jo & kids support me and Chandoo.org in numerous ways. They shower me with love, humor and support everyday so that I can be awesome at what I do.
- All my close friends & relatives: for supporting me & encouraging me to do better.
- Special shout out to Ram, Murthy, Madhuri, Raghu and Suman for giving me shelter & company when I am on business trips.
PS… something for you:
Here is a nice little surprise for you. Open a new Excel file & in A1 type
=SUBSTITUTE(ADDRESS(2^7,HEX2DEC("154A"),4)&SUBSTITUTE("PIN","I","Y ")&ADDRESS(11^2+2^2+2+1,12^2+3^2,2^2)&" "&CHAR(DEGREES(ASIN(0.9999)))&BIN2HEX(REPT(1,3)&0)&MID(REPT("RA",2),2,2),2^7,"")
15 Responses to “A Gantt Chart Alternative – Gantt Box Chart”
That's a great idea.
Maybe the planned End Date should be highlight more.
I don't know how it would look like (nor how to do it yet), but what if instead of finishing the bold line to the best case End Date, it finishes to the realistic End Date?
The idea is ok, I think other project management tools have this, already? Maybe not.
Gantt charts in my view are about the signal most unless thing in the world, theres no way you can look at one thats more that a little complex and understand what it's telling you. I'm going to write a diatribe on project management at some point, its one of my pet areas I think!! 😉
The issue I have with this chart Chandoo, is that Tasks need to be linked to each other, so they should inherit the uncertainty, which would mean the as you moved down chart the lines would be miles apart for later tasks, and you might have to add lots of lines for subsequent tasks to cover the various outcome of it's parents.
Having said that, for the high level board summary, it's a nice way to go, it it appeals to the management 😉
thanks Chandoo, great post.
Ross
Whoooa !!! That's a very clever idea Chandoo. I really love it.
I think i'll update my gantt project sheet with that idea soon (remember my template ?)
@ross : you can link start date to the end date of the previous task in your data. The only problem I still se is to which end date (real ? planned ? best ?) in order to have average amount of information.
If best end date, you'll tend to increase uncertainty at the end of chain, although if you link to real end date, uncertainty will be decreased too much, leading in both cases to wrong management direction.
Maybe planned till the task is finished then real will do the job ?
Hey chandoo, this looks good and this would definite add value in production planning / scheduling. Uncertainity in finishing a task is very high in production scheduling and this could give an insight or a bird eye view of possible shipments we can have....
I've always been frustrated by the limitations of gantt charts. Will definitely use this, I've always struggled with how to succinctly communicate the uncertainty of certain tasks without confusing stakeholders.
I like this, I think it's a very effective way of showing how a timeline can change and which parts of a project need close attention.
@Cyril / @Ross: I would intially link the the start date to the planned end date of the previous task, with the chart updating when a task has been completed to reflect the true end date.
Or what about giving a drop-down selection box to allow the user to see the chart based on planned/best-case/worst-case end dates?
Like the idea. Have found that Excel is more flexible than MS Project for graphical solutions. The "Best Case"\"Worst Case" metrics are theoretically appealing but once the project and\or phase commences their reliability diminishes. A chart like the above that showed Planned Start, Planned End, Replan End Start, Replan End Date, Number of Replans the Start and End Dates, and Actual would provide an active, actionable view of each task\phase. It would also highlight the areas which are riskiest.
It is always amazing how flexible excel can be.
My question is how would the chart show a scenario where the date moved up? If a task is dropped or the duration of the task is significantly reduced by applying more people or machinery to the task, the dates will move up.
The gantt chart has been around for a long time, but it is still quite useful to show progress.
Cheers,
B
I like the idea but seems bit complicated in case of long projects involving numerous activity.
Also, reading and explaining is required hence not feasible where plans are just send to audience for approval.
Cheers
SY
Great idea Chandoo,
When I was reading this idea regarding delivery dates, another thought popped into my mind, how can you show the uncertainty with MONEY!!
In this case, applies to cost management or even a normal budget, you think?
Would Box Chart and Gannt Chart help to understand the best case, middle case and worst case when money is spend or planned with these three risks are involved?
I imagine that this chart could help people who write their budgets get a better understanding of risks affecting their spending.
Peter
Chandoo,
I like it. How would you display an entry once it has been completed (actual)?
Thank you,
Matt
From what you have shown so far I think that this box Gantt chart is awesome! I think that this could be an extremely useful tool.
I can't wait to learn how to make my own charts in Excel.
Will the methods that you are going to teach us work in 2003 as well?
[...] Firday, we proposed a new chart for showing project plans. I chose an ugly name for it and called it Gantt Box [...]
You need to read Eli Goldratt's Critical Chain. The uncertainty you are looking for should be accounted for in a project buffer. Not at each task level.
Further you should spend time understanding Agile Development. This would have you plan only in 1-3week iterations. This allows you to embrace changes to work not yet started, and for your customer to re-direct your course at regular intervals (after each iteration) throughout your project. keyword search: Agile Scrum
These items will show you that you are solving a tracking problem for something that you can entirely avoid!
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