LEADERSHIP

98 • LEADERSHIP
Sophie nodded and continued on cue. “What we’re about
to create is a timeline chart. This is also known as a Gantt Chart
in honor of Henry Gantt, the guy who made it popular about a
hundred years ago. It’s a time-honored way,” pausing for her
pun to sink in, “…of understanding tasks, workflow, durations,
and resource requirements. You know the old saying ...
‘a picture is worth a thousand words!’”
“Let me show you the thought process,” she continued.
“Beginning with the first task, we ask, ‘How soon can we start
this task?’ Since there are no predecessors, task A can start
right away, so we mark its earliest possible start date with an
ES,” as she notated on the timeline, “at time zero. That would
be like a Monday morning at 8:00 AM, for example. Then you
check in the duration column and see that the time estimated
to complete the task is one week. Now we can add the estimated
duration to the earliest possible start time, the ES, and
calculate the earliest possible finish date, the EF.” She notated
the chart as she proceeded.
“We continue in like manner down the list, identifying
each task’s ES, adding the duration, and notating our chart
with the resultant EF. Pretty easy, eh? We call this process of
adding the duration to the task’s ES to determine the EF a forward
pass. I love the Gantt Chart because it makes time-phased
data relationships much easier to understand.”
Sophie stepped back and with a flourish worthy of a gameshow
host announced, “Ta-dah!”