6.11. Presentation of Project Plans

There are various forms and representations of flow charts and schedules. This involves:

• Sequence and deadlines of the tasks to be completed. Which resources are needed when.
• Showing the dependency of different tasks within the project. Draw attention to risks and to optimise the project process.
• Progress control: Current project progress in relation to the planned project progress.

Three of the most common forms of presentation are the milestone plan, the Gantt chart, and the network plan.

A milestone plan provides important project events such as the project start, the completion of the project object and the project end with dates. Depending on the complexity of a project, there are more or fewer intermediate steps (milestones).

Widely used and an integral part of most project management tools is the bar chart, also called Gantt chart. In a bar chart, not only the milestones of the project are listed, but also the tasks to be performed and the time periods for their processing are shown as bars along a time axis. Interrelationships and dependencies between the tasks are represented by arrows between the bars.

In network diagrams (standardized in DIN 69900), tasks (activities) and milestones are represented as nodes and relationships as arrows.

26 Holger Timinger, Modern Project Management, pp. 86-87, ISBN 978-3-527-53048-9, contents and graphics chap.6.11