May 6, 2009 / This is not a joke: Gantt charts in TargetProcess

1 comments

It's good to get questions from people who work with TargetProcess. Indeed, questions and feature requests are like a plancton for this product ocean. We thrive on them, and we take the power to move forward from our clients' feedbacks. Some of the questions are worth to be blogged on, to initiate a discussion and get the right direction.

So, one of these questions is about Gantt charts, whether we're going to implement them in TargetProcess or not. Notably, for the most part this question is asked just this way — are you going to implement Gantt charts? People forget to explain what are they looking for in Gantt charts and why do they need them whereas in reality it makes a huge difference if they want Gantt charts for dependencies on tasks level or if they want Gantt charts for Program-level planning, to get a "bird's eye view" on what's going on with all the projects, as they put it.

For those who want Gantt charts on tasks level, to manage dependencies and to nurture a gigantic critical path for the sake of nurturing it - the answer is always "no". There can be no Gantt charts for tasks and dependencies since agile is not about tasks dependency and critical path management — it's about flexibility and "temporary dependency", if you want to call it this way. The most you can get about dependency on User Stories and Tasks Level in TargetProcess is indication of related User Stories with a custom field. We're going to implement this in the next release.

User Story Name	Depends On
As a user I want to Logout	As a user I want to login
As an admin I want to delete users	As an admin I want to view users list
As a user I want to purchase things	As an admin I want to add thing into the catalogue

I will not be going into much detail with the reasons for this "no", re-writing multiple articles on this topic, Google is always right at your fingertips :) But I'll just give you a link to a very comprehensive post.

The only way for Gantt charts to stay alive in TargetProcess is in high-level planning of Program-Projects, that's what you might call a "what's- going-on-in-the-forest" view. We already have these Gantt charts in plans. That's how they will look:

Originally, TargetProcess has been more focused on managing just one project. But as we get feedback from people, we see the need to implement more elaborate features for managing multiple projects on Program-Project level — those Gantt charts provide a quick scan look to all the projects.

Follow our roadmap for the Gantt charts. Your feedback is really important to us, so we encourage you to register at our Help Desk Portal and support forum and vote for Program level Gantt charts here.

Labels: agile, gantt chart

posted by Olga Kouzina @ 4:04 AM