Advantages and Disadvantages of Project Planning

Resource Graph

Strengths

• Gives the user a clear view of all their employees and when they are allocated to work and when they are not.
• Also if the employee is over allocated this is shown clearly so that the user can organise its work force.
• The diagram shows every day of the project, so the user can organise its work force for the whole project.
• When an employee is over allocated the computer will automatically show you that they are, so that it can be corrected.
• Using a resource graph also helps the user, because they can easily find out how much each employee is working, therefore making sure that they are all do the right amount of work.
• If this software was not used for planning a project mistakes could easily be made about work allocation and this could slow the project down dramatically.
• The resource graph is just a simple bar chart therefore it isn’t hard to read and understand, even to people who may be computer illiterate.

Weaknesses

• The bar charts are of a big size therefore it the user wanted to print all the employees charts out it would take a lot of paper.
• The graph does not show what each individual task in which the employees are allocated to, this could be handy when looking through the graph.
• If the information inputted is incorrect the whole of the diagram could become wrong, if someone is allocated to many tasks, this could then slow down the whole project.
• The graph does not show what all the employees are doing on a single day, instead in shows them individually on different pages.

Resource Usage

Strengths

• This diagram shows clearly all the employees together and what all their task are, as well as the hours they will work in total.
• As well as the total hours they will work, it also gives information the hours the employees will work on individual days during the project.
• All the information is automatically updated when an employee is given an extra task or less hours, so that the user can see straight away how it changes the allocation.
• The user can also see if one employees is working more or less hours that the others, so that they can correct this mistake without any complications.
• If not produced by the project planning software this diagram would take some time to write out and could not be easily changed and updated.
• Employees themselves can use this information to plan ahead as they can see easily when they are working and when they are not.

Weaknesses

• Again if the resource usage diagram was to be printed out because all the hours each employee will be working for the whole project are displayed it would take a lot of paper, as well as time to look though all the data.
• The layout of the hours that each employee works per day can sometimes be unclear, and hard to follow who is work on what task.
• There is no information on what tasks are on the critical path, this could be important to know what employees are on the critical tasks.
• The resource usage diagram does show the total hours worked, but it could be useful to show the weekly hours of the employees, so that the user knows the averages weekly hours of its employees.

Gantt Chart

Strengths

• Each tasks is clearly stated along with its start and finish times, also the user knows which employee is carrying out these task, so they can see who’s doing what, so that they can plan for the whole project.
• Predecessors are shown as well which helps the user design the PERT chart, so that the critical path it produced correctly.
• If any task information changes at a later stage such as the duration, the information can easily be changed, and the software will update the project accordingly.
• Each task has its own ID number so that the user can quickly check that tasks are in the right order and position on the PERT chart.
• The employee that will be carrying out a certain task, if this information is changed then the software will automatically update therefore informing you if this has caused problems in other parts of the project.
• The Gantt charts offer a simple and easy way to input all the tasks at the beginning of a project, even for computer illiterate people.
• Each column and row sizes can easily be changed to fit any data that might need to be inputted into them.
• The chart gives shows clearly the length of each task, as it can be seen by the length of the strip.
• Also information on who is carrying out the task is shown above the strip, therefore the user can find out the resource quickly.
• If there is an overlap of tasks, this can clearly be seen on the diagram and the corrected.

Weaknesses

• When trying to organise the resources that will be used for each tasks, there can be problems in trying to get all the employees not working too many hours and can take some time to organise.
• Although it is easy to manipulate the information on the Gantt chart, it can sometimes automatically make changes to either the Gantt chart or the PERT chart, which are hard to correct.
• When trying to move or alter information on the Gantt chart it can be frustrating, especially when connecting different tasks with one another.