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Study the Gantt chart below showing the activities of a proposed project. Focus on these questions:
- How effective is the amount of detail shown for project activities in the Gantt chart? How could it be improved?
The activity of writing should be divided into smaller steps (such as drafting, editing, and revising) to help readers understand how much time is spent on each step of the writing process and when each step will start and finish.
- Note the fill patterns used in the horizontal bars. Readers expect Gantt charts to use dark colors to indicate completed activities and light colors to indicate activities still in progress. How might the patterns in this chart lead readers to misread or misunderstand information? Explain your answer.
Because Gantt charts use dark colors to indicate completed activities and light colors to indicate activities still in progress, the fill patterns in this chart suggest that the last two steps are completed but earlier steps are still incomplete. This is illogical and will confuse readers.
- How effective are the units used on the time scale? Explain your answer.
For a project of this scope, using the unit of months to illustrate the schedule does not allow the writer to show
accurately activities lasting less than one month. For example, if the writer wanted to divide the activity of "Write
Chapter 1-4" into "Draft Chapters 1-4," "Edit Chapters 1-4," and "Revise Chapters 1-4," these shorter activities could
not accurately be displayed. In addition, a reader might question whether the activity "Deliver Files to Print Shop"
takes an entire month.
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REVISED CHART
The following revision of the Gantt chart corrects the problems described in the sample answers.
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ORIGINAL CHART
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