Free Cloud Based Project Management Gantt Tool Gantter.com

I had to create a Gantt chart, and once again I didn't have Microsoft Project.

I so rarely create Gantt charts that I haven't had MS Project installed for a few years.

After a quick look around at the open source project management tool space, there didn't appear to be many new tools. And those that did exist didn't appear to have been updated recently.

But Gantter.com caught my eye.

I chose to use the "For Google Drive" edition, since I could log in with my google account and save the files to my Google Drive.

Initial Steps:

1. visit gantter.com
2. click on the "gantter editions" link
3. click [Start Now] for the "For Google Drive"
4. allow Google to authenticate and use Gantter.com
5. start creating your project plan

 Either click on "Untitled" or use "Project \ Properties" to set the Name of the project. Save that.

Then immediately click on "Autosave : OFF" to turn on Autosave, and then you are free to experiment.

A few Lessons Learned:

The tool is pretty simple to use so if you know Gantt charts, you'll be fine. Just a few lessons learned.

• Set the View to show "Work" and use the "Work" field to define the duration of the tasks, this way when you add resources it will calculate the duration correctly
• Use the description field so you know why you added certain work values
• "Make a copy" before you do any major edits - just in case
• I had best results with resource/work calculation by setting the "Advanced" type to "Fixed Work" "Effort Driven"

For a free tool this is great, it met my needs. Some great features:

• Import from MS Project
• Free
• Google Drive Integration
• Export To MS Project
• Simple to use

The printing is based on the view that you can see, so make sure you configure the view and size all the columns the way you want them to print.


I found that printing to png worked better than pdf because then I could control the paging when printing more easily.

The Gantter site has some videos showing how to use an older version of the software, but these are still useful for getting you up to speed.

http://gantter.com/help/videos/

 

The Blog has an RSS feed. I susbscribed to that, to keep up to date with the tool

 

http://gantter.com/blog/

 

Get It Done Now and Close Open Loops

The simplest productivity technique to understand, and implement, is "Get it done now"

It doesn't take any theory to understand. Just do it now. Whatever it is, just do it.

Aside from actually achieving something, this process closes our open loops.

Our brains are great at maintaining half finished thoughts for us. So as we work on an important task our brain kicks in and reminds us of that unimportant thing we haven't finished yet: those expenses we haven't claimed for yet, that email we haven't answered, that phone call we didn't return yet.

Here's a simple model of how our memory works. If we haven't locked in an action to a specific time, in a way that we know we won't lose it then our brain will iterate over the open loops and refresh the neuronal pathways keeping that thought alive.

We can clear the clutter. Keep our brain focused. Boost our productivity. When we close the open loops and just get it done now.

The fewer open loops we maintain, the more focused we will become.