Project Type: Classic / Gantt Project / Waterfall

A classical / Gantt project is defined by a number of activities with a planned start- and end date. This is also frequently called a "waterfall" project.

]project-open[ supports many styles of Gantt projects and the project methodologies behind them. This page provides an overview and a number of examples.

Classical / Gantt projects allow for tight progress tracking, financial controlling, resource management and other types of planning. However, any deviations from this plan are seen as negative or even failure, even though there may be valid business reasons for it.

]project-open[ Support for Gantt Projects

]project-open[ includes a great variety of specific functionality for Gantt projects:

• Gantt Editor portlet:
  Shows the project schedule as a   Gantt chart  and allows to modify the schedule using drag-and-drop in a way similar to Microsoft Project or the open-source products ProjectLibre and GanttProject.
• Gantt Task List portlet:
  Shows the project schedule in tabular format, suitable for editing may activities in the same page.
• Project Baselines:
  Shows a comparison between multiple versions of a project schedule, typically comparing an approved initial project plan with the current version.
  
• Resource Management:
  The resource management functionality uses assignments of resources to Gantt tasks in order to report resource usage across projects.
  
• Earned Value portlet:
  Earned value management compares the planned work with the actually performed work and the progress made / value earned.
  
• Financial planning:
  Allows to plan financial details about a project over time, by resource or by cost type.
  

Project Methodologies and "Styles" of Executing Projects

There are many methodologies and styles to execute a "Gantt project", even though all variants are defined by a number of activities with start- and end-dates. Here we list some frequently used options.

• No activities, just a main project:
  This is the most simple type of project possible. It consists only of a main project, but no activities, tasks or other sub-structure.
  This might be useful for small projects (less than two weeks of work), or during the definition phase of a project, when you simply don't know more than "three guys will work 50% on this during two months". So you can just assign three resources (or a placeholder) to the project at 50%. This will be fine in terms of resource management and [process-pm-financial-controlling]. Later you can refine the project schedule.
• Project methodology with a fixed set of "project phases":
  Project phases are usually represented as first-level activities right below the main project. By naming the first-level activities in the same way in all projects in the system, you can write reports across all projects.
• Stage-Gate Process, enforced:
  You can enforce a stage-gate behavior by setting all but the current project phase (1st level activity) to status "closed". Opening and closing phases can also be controlled via a workflow process.
  

Other Types of Projects

• Classic / Gantt Project / Waterfall projects
• Agile projects
• Mixed projects
• Maintenance / operations
• [Other types of projects]

Contact Us

Mapping project methodologies into ]project-open[ project types is not always obvious. Please contact us in case of doubt. We can can usually clarify any issues in a few minutes or hours of consulting.