There are lots of tools available in the market to create Gantt charts. However, you can also create a Gantt chart using Microsoft Excel. It is really easy.

Here are the simple steps:

1. Start the new worksheet and enter the project timeline data as a input in a excel spread sheet or enter the sample data in excel worksheet. Example: In an Excel sheet, make four columns for entering data with labelled Tasks, Start Date, Duration, and End Date.
2. Click on the chart and select bar chart option. Select a Stacked Bar Chart using Chart Wizard.
3. For selecting data for the stacked bar chart, right click on the chart and clicked on the select data option. Select data source dialog box will appear. In this dialog box click on add the series.
4. By clicking on add, edit series dialog box will be appeared with series name and series values.
5. Click on the series name and select the label name, start date in excel sheet. Click on the series values and select all the dates of the column start date in Excel sheet and click OK. Repeat the same operation with the column labelled Duration.
6. For changing the Axis Labels, click on edit and fill the axis label range by selecting the all the tasks (Task1, Task2…..Taks8) under labelled Tasks. Click OK and you will see that under the Axis label name of the entire task are labelled. Now this is the starting of Gantt chart.
7. There are two legends named Start Date and Duration. Select them both and delete them because for the Gantt chart there is no need of the legends.
8. In the series you found the Blue Bars. To modify it Right Click on bars. Select Format Data Series. There are options Fill for that select no fill, For Border Colour select no colour and click on close button. Now you can found some appearance of the Gantt chart.
9. There are a Labels Tasks1, Tasks2…..Task8 now format them by right clicking on it and choose option “Categories in reverse Order” and close. You can found the entire tasks in a specific order. In a chart you can found all the tasks and also found Tasks4 and Tasks5 overlap each other.
10. . For the better view of chart, we have to change dates into the comma style (Display the value of a cell with a thousand separators). Enter your starting date and ending date of your project and convert it into comma style.
11. . Right click on dates which are appeared on the chart, select format axis and enter minimum fixed and maximum fixed value i.e. starting and ending date of the project in a comma style. Click on close.
12. . Now you can found little bit easy readable data in the chart. You can also change the format of the date by right click on date/format axis/number and select format of date. Gantt chart will be designed according to data.

One of the major reasons in delay in the completion of the project is when team members sit idle, waiting for finishing of the task of their colleague. Team member start their task as their colleague complete their tasks. It is the responsibility of project manager to create a good project schedule.

There are some specific techniques like Project Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) and the Critical Path Method (CPM) which are very helpful for scheduling. Completion time of the project depends upon the critical path.

Here are few more tips to fine tune your project schedule:

Create Tasks & Sub Tasks: Divide whole project in to tasks & sub tasks. Calculate the estimated time of all the tasks & sub tasks & related activities.

Impact Analysis: Most of the times, client or customer raises for changes in the requirements. During the revisions in the schedule due to these changes, do a through impact analysis. I’ve seen many projects fail to deliver on time because of improper impact analysis. Most of the times, people do effort estimation for changes on the fly which leads to problems.

Determine Predecessor: Project must contain some activities which are not started until its predecessor activities are completed or we can say that some activities depend upon the other activities. So it is necessary to identify such activities and create schedule accordingly.

Gantt Chart: Create the Gantt chart for the project. It is an effective way to represent the schedule graphically. Gant Chart is a helpful tool for the monitoring a whole project progress.

Identify the critical path of the project. It is easy to know that which activity take longest time for completion and which activities can be delayed without making the project longer.

Reduce the slack time. Slack time is a time in which team members can relax and task are delayed but the project has been finished on time. This way productivity of team can be improved.

Crashing: Delivery time of the project can also effect the scheduling of the project, so it is necessary to reduce the delivery time of the project. You may use crashing for reducing the delivery timelines.

Fast Tracking: For completion of the project in a fix time it has been necessary to execute the entire task on fast track or execute independent tasks parallel.

During the project there are number of question like

1. How much time a Project take for completion?
2. How much time has been taken by the entire sub task separately?
3. Which tasks are completed at a time?
4. Which are the critical tasks, which can take extra time for completion?

By the use of activity network diagram, total time for the completion of the task, starting time of each task, ending time of each task are calculated and displayed with the graphical methods. The critical path method (CPM) was invented in the late 1950′s by Morgan R. Walker of DuPont and James E. Kelley, Jr. of Remington Rand.

Critical Path Method helps to identify the longest possible path for the completion of project.

Activity network diagram is also common to project managers by the name Program Evaluation Review Technique (PERT) or Critical Path Diagram. By use of the activity network diagram, we can able to determine that which activity take more time or we can say that which activities time is consuming. So by knowing about the time consumable by all the activities it is easy to determine that on which activity there is a need to apply more stress or on which activity need to apply less stress. So that whole project can be completed on time. As in an activity network diagram time, of all the activities are determined so creating an activity network diagram is a time consuming process.

In the project bounding, critical path method has an important role. Let’s see how it works:

Right Team: For Completion of the project at right time team has a great role. All the team members must have a knowledge about the all the sub tasks which are performed for completion of the project. Team will consist of manager, team members etc. For completion of the Project.

Main Subtask: Try to complete main sub task of the project first. Main sub task means those task without which project cannot be completed. For this purpose take the reference of the previous project, check out what were the main sub task for the completion of the project. As a reminder write the task at the top half on the activity card.

Arrange all the activity tasks in a specific order – which are required for completion of the entire project smoothly. For connection of all the activity cards use the path, which make a sequence for complete the whole project. If at any time, there is a requirement of new activity card it is easy to insert in sequence and if any activity card did not require, it can be easily deleted.

Time Duration: Assign the time duration of the each task for the completion and write it on the bottom half of the activity card. Check those activity cards have hours, minutes, and days for the completion. So select these cards which require less time for completion.

Determine Critical Path: Calculate the completion time of the all sub tasks so that we can able to determine the total time required for completion of project. The path which is used for the completion of all the sub tasks is known as Critical Path. By the critical path it is easy to check that project is going on a pre-define schedule or not. It is helpful for making the improvement in the speed of the completion of the project. Here, one important aspect is that if we can reduce the time/schedule for critical path, the project can be completed in less time. Basically, the critical path can help in determining possibilities of increasing the speed.

At the end calculate the earliest starting time and the finishing time and also calculate the latest starting and finishing time for all the subtasks which are helpful for the completion of whole Project.

Presence of the entire team, manager and member of clients must be present during the release planning meeting. Release plans are used for the creation of the iteration plans. There is a set of rules in the release planning meeting that every attendee to follow. Below are three key outcomes of release planning meeting:

1. Release Date
2. Release Goals n Objectives
3. Estimate for each Story
4. A high level schedule to achieve the release date

Purpose of the release planning meeting is that the entire team member must commit on the achieving the target within a time limits.

All business users take the business decisions and all the technical team make all the technical decisions. The main target of all the decision either technical or business is that to achieve the goal with in time limits. The key of the planning a release is knowing the team’s velocity.

All the attendees must come in the meeting with a prior preparation. It will help in run the meeting smoothly. It will also take less time. Generally Release Planning Meeting takes 4-8 hours depending upon the size of release.

Key points to discuss in the meeting are:

1. During the release planning meeting set the release end date.
2. Discuss all the points related to the current project release, so that common understanding will become between all the members of team on all the points related to the project.
3. Set the goals & objectives of the release. These should be for both developing team as well as for business users/customer.
4. During the meeting make a priority list of all the stories for the release and add only that stories which are helpful for achieving the goal.
5. The scrum team has been fully responsible for the technical part of the project, if any team member found any technical/non-technical problem which may change the time estimate or release schedule, so, that team member must have discuss that point(s) in the meeting.

Also, it is very important that decisions in the meeting should be collective. These should not be forced to any of the stakeholder.

Here are help tips to build successful project teams:

Team Selection: During selection of the project team, first select the team leader. Which is necessary for a project Team? Team leader must have the full knowledge about the project, knowledge about the various functions that are to be performed in the project. Team leader must be an expert person who knows the tact for facing and solving any type of problem in a project. Team Leader must know the way of how to manage his team member for the competition of the project.

Check the calibre of the team members for the project. They must have the knowledge about the required domain or field. Based on the skill level of the team member, place him or her in the relevant position in the team hierarchy.

Attitude of team members must be positive about the company and project. If they have a positive attitude, they can solve any type of problem in a project and work towards the achievement of goals for the project success.

Whenever a new team member joins the project, first help him understand the goal of the project. When, he or she understands why this product or software is being build, team member can add more value to the development.

Communication: For the successful project team it is necessary to give time to all the team members in which they can communicate with each other. So it is the responsibility of the project manager to set the spare time for communication at the time of project scheduling.

Performance Evaluation: Define frequency & criteria for performance evaluation of team members. It should be transparent. Give a fair feedback to each team member and suggest areas of improvement in a positive way in a one-2-one meeting. For performing members, give rewards – financial or non-financial.

Induction: When any new member comes in a team, it is the responsibility of the project manager to arrange induction program. Give the knowledge about the company, about the project. For new team members, arrange KT of the project well on time. Avoid for making the pressure on a new member.

Apart from these points, also plan some team building exercises and team trainings etc.

Most of the debates, and discussions about cloud computing are technology centric. In order to become a global leader in Cloud Computing services space, it is important to understand the technology & business.  It will help in providing high end services to customers as trusted advisor.

Project Management acts as catalyst in building the robust service delivery engine to deliver better, faster and cheaper services to global customers. It is important to build project management engine for service delivery to ensure repeated high success rate.

PMI North India Chapter is organizing an event on 30-Sep-11 with Project Management Veterans on Project Management in Cloud Computing in Noida, India. It is in collaboration with IBM India.

This event is an effort to build a platform and initiate dialogue to build the necessary project management assets ahead of the other countries. This is a transformation journey and which country starts first and move fast will be the winner!

There is not fee to attend this event for PMI North India Chapter members. However, for non-members, there is a fee of Rs. 400 per member i.e. less than $10. Hope this event is worth for money. Registration will be on the spot.

Here is the basic details of the event:

Key Speakers:

1. Anuj Garg, PMP – IBM: Anuj is a dynamic PMP certified professional with over 5 yrs of experience in Project/Program Management. He has earned“Innovation and Leadership” and “Technical Excellence” awards. He believes cloud computing and virtualization are the way forward for Infrastructure needs in the coming future.
2. Satyajit Das, PMP, ITIL – CSC: Satyajit is a PMP and ITIL certified professional with over 18 years experiencein diversified technologies. He is currently supporting 20+ customers for their Infrastructure and Cloud Computing needs.

However, as per email I received, for any further queries, you may reach to any of the board members of PMI North India Chapter. Their updated contact information is available @

http://www.pminorthindia.org/About-Us/Board-Of-Directors.aspx

The main aim of the Work Breakdown Structure is to divide the whole project into number of small parts. WBS can be represented graphical methods such as a hierarchical tree, tabular form etc. As that of graphical nature of the WBS, it will be helpful for the Project Manager to ensure about the adopting or not the particular decisions made by him for the success of the Project. WBS is a special attribute in the success of a Project. WBS follows task oriented approach also. But task oriented approach is good only for a small project rather than large project. Main benefit of the task oriented approach is that these are easy to understand.

Generally project schedules are built by use of WBS. Before creating the Work down break structure it is the major responsibility of the project manager to define all the key attributes. After defining the key attributes identifies the different task which are required to reach those goals. Work Break down structure is like a hierarchical tree. The primary requirements are at the top of the tree and all the secondary requirements of the project are at the bottom side.

Also, creation of WBS depends upon size of project. The activities which are necessary at the starting point of the project are define at the top of the tree rest of all are breakdown in to the small parts and this process is continue until the work required to complete all of the activities are defined. Small project deliverables may take one or two levels of work breakdown. Others may take three, four, or more.

Benefits for creating a WBS:

1. It is necessary to divide whole project into sub projects so that all the team members can view the whole work and also make a check that all the work which is already defined is going to complete or not.
2. By creating a WBS all the work is defined, so it is easy to know about the total cost of the project before its completion.
3. With the WBS team member shows their calibre. Team leader knows about the specialization of the team member. Specific tasks are assigned to specific team member, who is responsible for its completion.
4. During the process of creating the WBS project manager must know about the resources which are required for completion of the project.
5. As in WBS whole project is divided into number of sub projects so it is easy to manage all these and easy to make schedule of their time of completion.

Here is an example of a graphical representation of a WBS:

It is not necessary to expand the tasks in only three level. You can expand it to any number of levels. More expanded would be more accurate & add more value to the project. Along with the task & sub tasks, budget & %age share of each tasks or if it is a sub task, then %age share of sub task in the parent task can be mentioned.

Overall I would say, WBS is not only a schedule for the project but it is a technique by which work is understood from top to bottom. After completion of WBS project manager can make the sequencing the activities, estimate the cost of project, estimate time of completion.

Project management deals with organizing, planning and managing the resources which are required for the project to achieve the specific target. Competitions of the project in a specific time and with in a given budget is only done if the project is manage with a good way. In an organization it is the responsibility of the project manager to manage the project by using good and effective project management methodologies.

A pleasurable project manager must manage basic elements of the project for achieving the goal like time, money, scope and the resources. These are all important project elements that are necessary for a good project management and these elements are interrelated with each other.

Timelines: To get a successful Project Management it is necessary to fix the deadline of the project or we can say that starting time and completion time of the project should be fixed and the project must be complete in a given time.

Budget: Budget associated with the resources and materials needed to accomplish the project’s deliverables. Budget is an also essential part of the successful project management. Loss and profit of the project has a direct link with the budget. So it is necessary to fix the budget of the project before it starts and complete the project within a fixed budget.

Project Goal/Objective: Aim of the project must be clear, indicates what you want to achieve with the project and with whom.

Project Management methods: For effective project management, methodology to follow for the execution of project must be defined & declared at organization level. A comprehensive, logically structured and clearly written process must be in place for good Project Management which declares that who will be doing what at what time with whom to achieve the project objectives and deliverables.

WBS: Building blocks of the work breakdown structure must be there that allows the project manager to define the steps necessary for the completion of the work can be thought of as sub-projects, which, when combined, form the completed project. There must a best utilization of the resources, which are required to complete of the Project.

Project success depends on the quality of planning. A good project plan is a basis for effectiveness in follow-up, evaluation, visibility and sustainability of outcomes. It is the responsibility of the PM to manage these components in a parallel way to get a success in a Project Management.

There are various type of Project Management Software, which can be used to manage the project or we can say that Project Management Software can help streamline the majority of those tasks. Efficient and effective communication along with the ability to manage project resources effectively is the key to project success.

During the starting of a Project, it is not possible to know in how much time project will be completed but it can be predicted by developing a good Project Schedule. During project planning many assumptions and uncertainties are considered.

So, some people believe that Project Scheduling is an Art rather than Science.

In a good project schedule all the tasks are organized in a specific sequence. An effective Project Schedule will be helpful to control all the Project Activities, also able to determine that how resources are efficiently used. Project Scheduling is mainly responsibility of the Project Manager. Project Schedule will define that when the required project starts and when it is expected to be completed and who will perform this work.

A successful project schedule requires proper estimation of the effort, definition of staffing needs and resource requirements, and the identification of work durations.

For making the good and effective project schedule following points must be considered:

1. Project Schedule is a part of Project Planning. So getting the good Project Schedule depends on the quality of project planning effort.
2. Make the sequence of all the schedule activities in a order in which they will be performed.
3. In Order to build to project schedule project must be decomposed into number of sub tasks known as schedule activities. So before making the project Schedule of whole project , it is necessary to get complete information about the sub tasks like how much time they take for completion, and which type of resources they required for completion. These sub tasks have a direct effect on the Project Schedule.
4. Control the Project Schedule by identifying, monitoring and influencing factors that cause the schedule change.
5. There are some method which are helpful for making the effective Project Scheduling like CPM (Critical Path Method), PERT ( Project Evaluation and Review Technique). Use these methods for getting effective Project Schedule.
6. While developing Project Schedule it is necessary that project manager will not have to put their input only. Input from functional manager, consultant and project team members must be considered throughout the schedule development process.
7. Any project can be broken down into a number of tasks that have to be performed. To prepare the project schedule, the project manager has to figure out what the tasks are, how long they will take, what resources they require, and in what order they should be done. Each of these elements has a direct bearing on the schedule.