Activity Report 2

Activity: Video

•Discuss if you have used a Gantt chart with Microsoft Excel or software for managing the program.

1.Compare the two in terms of ease of use: Gantt Chart and Microsoft Excel.

A gantt chart is very simple and easy to make and also makes it very easy to read. They outline all of the tasks involved in a project, and their order, shown against a timescale. This gives you an instant overview of a project, its associated tasks, and when these need to be finished.

Microsoft Excel is a great program to use to transform data into vidual graphs, charts and information. Microsoft excel is quite simple to use and there are a lot of tutorials and hints that will make using excel very easy.

Nurre, S. G., & Weir, J. D. (2017). Interactive Excel-based Gantt chart schedule builder. INFORMS Transactions on Education, 17(2), 49-57.

2 What were some benefits of using these tools?

Gantt charts are great because they:

Establish the initial project schedule – who is going to do what, when and how long will it take.

Allocate resources – ensure everyone knows who is responsible for what.

Make project adjustments – the initial plan will need many adjustments.

Monitor and report progress – helps you stay on schedule.

Control and communicate the schedule – clear visuals for stakeholders and participants.

Display milestones – shows key events.

Excel is good for:

Visualize, manipulate, and evaluate the data.

Create equations that can allow you to provide more data on vital company functions, such as workflow, project efficiency, financial projections and budgets, and even inventory levels and usage.

Create an easy-to-read set of data that can be used by upper management to analyze current projects or situations in the company.

Design spreadsheets that better organize data and provide a better picture of the information that is input.

Oh, H.J.A., Muriel, A. and Balasubramanian, H., 2014, December. A user-friendly excel simulation for scheduling in primary care practices. In Proceedings of the Winter Simulation Conference 2014 (pp. 1177-1185). IEEE.

3. What are some short coming sof these tools?

Gantt Charts

Require more efforts for Creating and Managing the Chart

Updating a Chart is Very Time Consuming

All Tasks are not visible in a single view of a Gantt

Need to scroll and Click additional buttons to view remaining items

Stacks represents only the time and not the hours of the work

Gantt, H., 2015. Gantt chart.

Excel:

Difficult To Manage Advanced Pricing Rules

Lack Of Control And Security

Excel Is Difficult To Troubleshoot Or Test

Excel Is Not Designed For Collaborative Work

Walkenbach, J., 1997. Gantt Charts in Excel. PC World......

 (pp. 1177-1185). IEEE.

3. What are some short coming sof these tools?

Gantt Charts

Require more efforts for Creating and Managing the Chart

Updating a Chart is Very Time Consuming

All Tasks are not visible in a single view of a Gantt

Need to scroll and Click additional buttons to view remaining items

Stacks represents only the time and not the hours of the work

Gantt, H., 2015. Gantt chart.

Excel:

Difficult To Manage Advanced Pricing Rules

Lack Of Control And Security

Excel Is Difficult To Troubleshoot Or Test

Excel Is Not Designed For Collaborative Work

Walkenbach, J., 1997. Gantt Charts in Excel. PC World, 15(12), pp.386-386.

4. What are some recommendations you would make to students who have not used these tools before?

There are a lot of benefits of using MS Excel, which is why it is used worldwide by people for performing so many tasks. It not only saves time but also it makes the work easier. It can almost perform every type of task. For example, you can do mathematical calculations and you can also make graphs as well as charts for storing the data. It becomes easy for the businessman to calculate things and store data in it.

Although, Gantt Chart has few disadvantage. It is still a powerful tool for managing your projects, teams and time more effectively. Because of its clarity in visual representation of tasks and easiy to schedule the tasks and understand by different time frames.

Rastogi, D., 2015. Mind Mapping to Gantt Charts. International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications.

Write down key learnings form the video and keep for future reference. The trainer/assessor will facilitate a class discussion about the outcomes from the video.

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