Visualize roadmaps and track progress
- Magdalena Żaczek
Introduction
The BigPicture Gantt module comes in handy to visualize your project roadmap.
The Gantt module includes four key elements:
Customizable task list (Work Breakdown Structure - WBS).
Timeline with a high-level overview of the entire project, with tasks and dependencies that visualize your work items and include auto-scheduling.
Resources panel that shows your resources’ workload. You can easily notice over and under-allocation of resources.
Infobar that highlights the most important information related to your project, e.g. Overdue tasks, Critical path, Dependencies, and Milestones.
All these elements empower the way your roadmap is presented. Let the Gantt module develop high-level roadmaps for you.
See the video:
Visualize relations between items
Let’s use BigPicture to enable cross-project management for dependencies among items from different monday boards. BigPicture provides a number of automation mechanisms that help you save time and keep hundreds of tasks under control and within deadlines. BigPicture allows you to automate task scheduling and create dependencies between items from various monday boards.
Dependencies are relationships between tasks, milestones, and other items. The mechanism can simultaneously move one or more tasks linked to a task that is being moved. By defining dependencies, task dates and other initiatives are updated automatically as a result of changes made to a project.
BigPicture can schedule the task based on dependencies, task structure, and other factors. There are five different modes:
Auto basic (default mode)
Auto bottom-up
Auto top-down
Manual
Locked
See the video:
Map dependencies and monitor progress
Keep your tasks on track with auto-scheduling
Dependencies specify the relationship between items, milestones, and other elements in a logical sequence. They help you visualize the order in which you need to proceed with the issues and estimate the timeframe. You can draw dependencies between parent items and sub-items in the same monday board, as well as items from different monday boards.
Dependencies
Soft dependencies
In BigPicture, no action dependencies are called Soft dependencies and are used to mark relationships between tasks without changing their dates (indicating that tasks are thematically related). You can also create dependencies between items from different monday boards.
Soft dependencies are marked on the Gantt chart with a dashed line.
Strong dependencies
In BigPicture, strict and flexible dependencies are called Strong dependencies and they can cause task date changes, as they are mainly used for scheduling.
BigPicture provides great possibilities for defining four types of dependencies, setting them in ASAP or non-ASAP mode, as well as adding a time interval between tasks (called “lag time”). You can also create dependencies between items from different monday boards.
Strong dependencies are marked on the Gantt chart with a solid line.
Broken dependencies
A broken dependency is displayed as an orange arrow and indicates that a strong dependency can't be fulfilled due to other scheduling rules. Identifying these broken dependencies helps you spot tasks that might be incorrectly linked, indicating potential delays or deviations from the project workflow.
See more on the Display dependencies page.
Lag time
It is the time period calculated in days by dividing the linked tasks. Lag time has the highest priority over other dependency properties. In both ASAP and non-ASAP modes the lag time will be respected and applied regardless of other circumstances. The type of dependency determines which date (Start or End) of the source task the lag time will be added to.
ASAP mode
ASAP mode always schedules the target task to take place “as soon as possible”, according to dependency type. This renders the target task strictly dependent on the source. Therefore, it will be impossible to drag and drop it, neither to the future nor the past. The target task will always revert to its position previously calculated by scheduling.
Dependencies in monday vs. BigPicture
Dependencies existing on the monday side, as well as on the BigPicture side will run parallel scheduling mechanisms affecting task dates. If monday board has a column with Strict or Flexible dependencies, this means that dependencies in BigPicture should NOT then affect tasks. Otherwise, various scheduling mechanisms would lead to setting incorrect dates on tasks.
Customize the timeline view to track progress
With the timeline options, you can easily monitor progress and deadlines. The features, such as milestones and markers, provide a clear visual representation of project progress. The timeline can be modified to display various time intervals depending on your needs.
Make “what-if” scenarios to test changes to the Gantt chart
If you wish to take your planning activities to the next level, use the what-if scenario option and try out different variants of your plan, compare the results, or save your scenario as reference points. The scenarios don’t make any changes in your monday items until you decide to replace the live view with it.
Organize your tasks in a way you need
Display different fields as columns, change the aggregation, and display options
You no longer need to go to a given issue separately to check its details. With BigPicture, you get a holistic view of your project at once. You can freely customize the task tree in the Gantt module in terms of the data you want to see. Column views allow you to add various fields and configure their display and aggregation settings in just a few clicks. Once your column view is customized, you can save it for future use.
Control critical paths and set milestones
Generate the critical path for your project
Don’t spend time calculating the critical path on your own. Let BigPicture take care of it for you! As long as you have your scope and strong dependencies, BigPicture will automatically draw the critical path. You can also create alternative critical paths with what-if scenarios.
Use drag & drop and inline editing
Arrange everything with drag & drop
The drag & drop feature allows you to perform various actions in BigPicture such as moving boxes up and down in the hierarchy, creating dependencies, moving the timeline, and much more!
Update fields with inline editing
Instead of jumping between several edit pages, use the inline editing option to make changes to tasks. Discover how easy it is to inline edit fields when working with column views or grouping tasks.