Prototyping a Project Management App - Part 2

Next up, let's take a moment to look at scheduling and estimating timelines for our projects. The classic view for this in project management is called a "Gantt Chart". Jump over to wikipedia if you are desperate to read all about this type of chart.

Keeping with the same recipe for beef goulash (I'm starting to get hungry...) here's a simple example of how it might look like as a Gantt chart:

Hopefully it's fairly obvious how the diagram works, but let me break it down a little. A Gantt chart is essentially a timeline view. Each task (or recipe step in our case) gets its own bar that represents the amount of time it takes to complete. In this example, each step occurs one after the other, but if we had some steps that could be done asynchronously (in parallel, at the same time as one another), then you would see bars overlapping in time here and there.

I like Gantt charts because they can help answer everyone's boss's favorite question "when will this be done?". For really complex projects, where the ultimate deadline may be months away, a Gantt chart can be a good way of at least putting together an approximate delivery date. It's also a great tool for general planning and can help to identify potential bottlenecks for any project.