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I've just been describing how it's a really bad idea to hold a project plan in your head.

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We need to draw it out in some way and I want to show you what I would recommend as the best way to

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draw this out.

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So this is the A.P.M. process the association of project managers or p.m.-I if you're in America and

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a lot of project management books will recommend two things I recommend what's called a network diagram

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and a gunshot.

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And what I've realized is we need both quite often in books they just say the network diagrams are great

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for thinking about dependencies on the Gantt chart is great for thinking about time scales but they

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don't really make the point very clearly that you need both and you absolutely do need both.

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So that's what I'm going to show you here.

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So I'm going to take an example it's fairly dear to my heart because this is planning a wedding.

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My daughter had her wedding recently and we did actually do this but I'm going to show you a simplified

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version of it just for demonstration purposes OK.

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So the first thing you do is you just get a list of all the tasks and I mention that.

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And then you estimate the times of the tasks and then you put them on some sort of some sort of plan

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some sort of network diagram.

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So what I've done is I've just prepared preprepared on here and a whole load of post-it notes with tasks.

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And that's what you do.

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So let's say for example we need to decide who we're going to invite So we need to we need a guest list

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so stick that one there.

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We need to get a venue.

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So I've got all my tasks on here in roughly the right places and these tasks just came from big brain

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dump of everything.

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And actually while you're sticking them on you might even think of a few more tasks and just get another

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posted and bang them on.

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So this is roughly the right order and then need to put the dependencies.

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So I'm probably going to think about the budget first and then decide what venue I can afford.

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I also got the venue I can look at availability of the venue and I can set a date.

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That's quite a key moment really isn't it.

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And once I've set a date then I'm probably going to think about the timing exactly of my day what's

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going to happen when and I think that does depend on the venue because you know is it available in the

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morning or the afternoon or whatever.

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Now the guest list of who I'm going to invite probably depends on my budget it probably doesn't depend

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on the venue but I think it depends on the budget printed printing the invitations.

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I need to know who I'm going to invite.

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But I also need to know what time to put on the invitations.

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So that needs both of those things then I can send the invitations.

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See who's going to come get my final list of attendees then I can do my seating plan.

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I probably can't do the seating plan and I know who's coming which means I need to have done the inviting

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obviously before the day.

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I need the seating plan.

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Then I'll go to book the catering.

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And I think I probably need to know what time of day I need the caterers So I think that comes from

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the timings and I need the catering before the day obviously when there's buying the dress.

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Now what does that depend on.

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Probably probably not setting the date at all.

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Actually I think it probably does because I don't think I would actually buy the dress until we definitely

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had a date booked.

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So let's say that depends on there.

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And then the dress doesn't really affect anything else.

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I just need that before the day.

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Now I put on my little post-it note on here all the things I've missed out for the sake of this demonstration.

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I haven't thought about the cake.

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The photographer the stag do and hand do the honeymoon.

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So all these other things I just haven't done.

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But in real life you would need all of those on here as well.

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So let's say that this is your plan.

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You then can look at how long these things are going to take.

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So something about you can do that fairly quickly let's just say I need a week to debate that with my

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other half and try to persuade my parents to fork out lots of money and then getting a venue I'm going

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to say I'm going to spend four weeks doing it because I think that's quite you know it's going to take

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some research visiting looking at places setting the dates going to be really quick and then the timing

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is going to be really quick and I'm going to say it's going to take me a couple of weeks to debate the

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guest list because again that's quite political of who we're going to invite and printed in the invitations

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could take a while.

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And if we're going to go for old fashioned paper invitations So let's say that's going to take me six

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weeks to do and then I'm going to send them out but I going to probably wait a month till I know who's

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coming because I'm not going to hear back from people straight away that I can do the seating plan.

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Let's say the caterers need six weeks notice at least before the wedding.

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They've got a pile of food and plan all of that.

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The day itself is a zero it's just an event that has no generation buying a dress.

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I know nothing about wedding dresses for the sake of this demonstration let's say that it's going to

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take 12 weeks to get the dress made or fitted or whatever they do with wedding dresses.

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So let's say this is my plan for the wedding.

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Now you can already see.

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You wouldn't want to keep this in your head.

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It's far better to draw this out.

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Particularly you can work on this with several people.

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So a group of you could say Well I think we should do it in this order and I think you know if we get

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the venue and then decide the budget or whatever.

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So a team of you can debate it when you've got it drawn out it's much better than just having it in

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your head.

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So once you've got this you can then look for the longest path through which tells you how long the

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project is going to take and you can see the longest path from this to get to the six.

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It's much slower to go through the four and the one in the one than it is to go through that too.

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Now this 12 could be the longest path but it actually isn't because coming through here is longer and

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this one's longer than this one isn't it.

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So I reckon this is the longest path through here.

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Just check in at that 12 is definitely shorter than 1 6 1 for one isn't it.

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So how long is it going to take me before I can get married.

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And the answer is it's five six seven plus six is 13 14 18.

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It's going to take me 19 weeks.

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So in theory I could get married 19 weeks from today or my daughter could.

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Another way to think about it is that I need to decide at least 19 weeks ahead of the day.

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I need to start this process if I'm working back from a finished date of when we get married say by

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Christmas I need to need to work back 19 weeks before then.

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So I now know how long my project is going to take.

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So this thing things called a network diagram and it's sometimes called a critical path diagram or sometimes

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also called a PERT chart.

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I just call it a post-it note diagram when I run my training courses and the Post-Its are quite low

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tech.

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I totally accept that are low tech but I think they're better than a computer because several people

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can all just move stuff around is just quicker and easier.

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Post-it notes on a white board or even just post-it notes on a big sheet of paper.

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I think they're better than a computer.

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And this is the heart of the planning process because this is when we actually decide how we going to

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do this thing.

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When are we going to get the dress.

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You know do we need this before this.

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Etc. so that's the first part of the planning process.

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Now I mentioned at the start of this video that we need both this and again shot and I want to show

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you that now.

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So what I'm going to do is I'm going to squeeze a little Gantt chart just down in the corner here.

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No idea because I don't have a huge amount of space but I want to show you how you can then very easily

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make this into a gun shot.

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OK so I'm just going to rub out that Ira if you can just imagine that you know the arrow is still there

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and we're just going to draw a little gunshot down in the corner.

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So the first thing we need for a gunshot is our time going across the top and we've already seen that

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this adds up to 19.

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So we just went from naught to 19 on here.

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So let's call it 20s and let's just call it five 10 15 20.

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I would use Excel for this in the ideal world but I'm just going to show it to you briefly with pens

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OK.

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It's just like an Excel spreadsheet so you can see how you do it with Excel.

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So once we've got our time we then just put in the critical path and we just focus on the Redpath nothing

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else.

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So it's really easy.

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So we just put in one week for the budget and we put in four weeks for the event.

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So that takes us to then levy for venue.

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Then we put in a week for setting the date a week for planning the timings we're up to seven now and

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then six weeks for the invitation.

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So that took us to a teen.

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So I'll put print invitations on that then we're going to send post them off.

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So then we've got four weeks to get our final list of attendees.

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So that takes us to 18.

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And then you've got one more week for the seating plan.

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So that's 19 weeks to do our critical path and the day itself.

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Usually events are just drawn as a line like that they have no generation it's just a vertical line.

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So that's our critical path on there.

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And then the floating tasks just go in between.

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So for example the guest list comes a time after we've set a budget and it has to be done before we

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print the invitation.

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So somewhere in here we're going to agree to a guest list.

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I'll just put it in the middle for the moment.

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So little 2 week floating tasks.

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Somewhere in between here and here Deji the guest list.

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So we've got a choice of when we do that as long as it's done before here.

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Then we can print the invitations.

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So that's the guest list floating in there.

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The catering is any time that we've planned the timings which is here that's planning the timing isn't

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it.

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So it's any time after that and it has to be done.

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So the catering has to be done after the planning the timing has to be done before the day.

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So anywhere between here and here we can put the catering.

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So I'll put that in quite early put that in the catering.

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But quite a lot of choice about when we do that one.

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And then finally there was buying the dress.

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And you remember this one comes after setting the date.

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So it comes off to here.

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I'm going to put it above the critical part just to save some space but normally you would put all the

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floating tasks under the critical path.

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But just to save a bit of space and we go put it in here it's a 12.

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Now how much float has it got.

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It hasn't got a lot of floats actually because if you add up all of these you got 1 7 8 12 13.

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It's only got one week of float.

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So I think we need to get on with buying the dress.

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Absolutely immediately.

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That's buying the dress.

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And we've only got one week of safety margin.

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That's pretty tight.

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So I would want to keep a close look at that.

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But in theory it's a floating task it's got one we could float.

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So it's a little bit scruffy looking and I would recommend using Xcel for this.

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I've made a YouTube video.

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You can look at however you draw it.

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This is the Gantt chart and why is the Gantt Chart worth having.

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Why don't we just have the post-its and that's is the Gantt chart shows everything to scale so we can

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now see what's critical and what's floating.

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We can see that this has got lots of flow.

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The guest list we could see that the dress has very little float.

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So we're going to keep an eye on that.

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We can choose earlier or later but we can also look vertically on the Gantt chart and we can see what's

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happening at the same time as what.

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So we can see that here we are.

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And what are we doing.

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We're getting a wedding dress.

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We're printing the invitations and we are arranging the catering.

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And the question is can we do all three of those things at the same time.

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Now we probably can because printing the invitations just waiting for the printer.

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So that's not too bad.

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But if these were activities that required quite a lot of work we can start to ask ourselves have we

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got enough time to do it all at once.

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And if you are too busy you might want to move some of your floating terser they don't line up with

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other times when you're busy.

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So the gunshot allows you to see the project much more clearly in terms of a real time line and you

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can actually put real data along here so that you can actually put things in your diary and you can

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say to the person this is when we're going to be looking at venues.

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So we need to allocate some time in our diary when we're going to do that.

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So we know where each thing is going to happen.

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This is when we're going to be posting the invitations and we know the actual date and for the floating

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tasks.

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It helps us to remember you know this is when you got to do these floating tasks.

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So the gunshot is really good for seeing a time scale.

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So that's the gunshot.

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And you can also use the gunshot for monitoring your progress.

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When we get to let's say week 13 we have an line which in the old days used to be a piece of string

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that would move along.

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But nowadays it be on a computer.

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So you have an outline and then you can color in what you've done.

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So let's say by the time we get to week 13 that we've got a budget we've got the venue we have set the

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date we planned the timings and that's all we've done.

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How is our plan doing.

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The answer is not very well.

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We're not keeping up with the knowledge Oh we we should be halfway through getting the dress by now.

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We should have printed the invitations.

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We should've got a catering arranged and we should have agreed the guest list.

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That's what you want to see.

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So the color didn't get chart gives me an instant view of how's the project doing.

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So if somebody else was doing this project for me and I wanted to monitor progress.

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The one question I would ask them is can I see or colored in Gantt chart and if they say well what's

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a gunshot it's all in my head.

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I would definitely worry because I want to see it drawn out colored in clear and easy to see.

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So that's why a gunshot is so great.

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It's very clear to see the progress everybody could see.

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Part of it and you've got a real time scale.

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So just to sum this up I think you need both of these.

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You do need to go through the Post-Its to get to the Gantt chart because how could you jump straight

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to this.

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It needs to know the critical part first and then the floaters all hang off that.

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So to find the critical part you have to do the post-its and you have to decide on the running order.

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So the Post it's a great that you get the running order get a credible power and then it's dead easy

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to draw the Gantt chart based on that.

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So you need both.

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Do not try to have all of this in your head.

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It's never going to work.