“As you navigate through the rest of your life, be open to collaboration. Other people and other people’s ideas are often better than your own.” – Amy Poehler
Academic investigations into the history of technology – and its manifold forms and applications – indicate the occurrence of watershed moments that cast important, often spectacular, effects on the course of human history and modern industrial development. The steam engine, the Spinning Jenny, the first Industrial Revolution, the invention of vacuum tubes, the discovery of penicillin, and others, represent prime instances of watershed moments that generated profound and long-term effects. When we consider recent times – such as the last five decades – we find software-driven paradigms, systems, and processes have gained significant pace in depth, reach, and scope; these have etched their presence in wide ranges of contemporary commercial, industrial, technological, and scientific applications. In this context, specialized software packages such as project chart desktop programs assist business associates, project workers, and project architects/engineers to derive dynamic overviews of various projects, enable clear communication across the (human and technical) components of projects, promote co-ordination and creative activity, enable time management practices, help managers assess progress registered by projects, and spotlight dependencies among various tasks that comprise an ongoing project.
Contemporary observers refer to project chart desktop programs as Gantt charts “that make data visual, instantly impacting the viewer” – these charts allow designers to render difficult concepts into images that promote comprehension. When these programs find expression inside flowcharts, they appear in the form of bar charts equipped with segments of varying lengths. Designers may include different metrics – such as timelines, the progress of certain sections of projects, ownership of the segments, various project functions, sequences of numbers, and more to convey critical information generated by projects. Interestingly, such visual images gain from the systematic use of traditional flowchart devices; these include arrows and connectors, clusters of data bucketed by functionality and relevance, color-coded segments, the flow of direction, multiple layers of information, and more. Additionally, designers could help evolve the concept of Gantt charts when they design different stages of projects across individual diagrams within the confines of a master blueprint.
Inflexible elements such as dates etched on calendars and custom-driven information such as tasks and notes from discussions could converge inside a flowchart-based rendering of project chart desktop programs. The use of tabs promotes user-friendly techniques of representing information, while the expanse of flowcharts helps integrate calendar dates, tasks, and inputs from professional conversations. Certain elements of software-powered automation can direct the attentions of readers to updates, schedules, priorities, and pending tasks. Further, the flowchart gains relevance when images undergo focused dispersal among project associates and workers, thereby injecting the element of synchronicity in team performance. The cause of consistency gains a boost when project chart desktop programs are positioned inside digital networks; this stance allows all stakeholders to gain real time visibility into project operation, thus excising the risks that attend perceived/actual gaps in the flow of project information.
Custom-designed project chart desktop programs could take shape via active participation from groups of designers working digitally with stakeholders. Pursuant to this stance, these individuals could select the constituent elements such as colors, fonts, special designs, bespoke connectors, rounded extended bars, specific arrangement of tabs, and others. In addition, a plethora of attachments in the form of videos, web links, notes, comments, feedback modules, and images could embellish special editions of these programs. Corporate organizations, over time, could evolve custom motifs that could evolve into templates for project chart desktop programs devised inside these organizations. Additionally, developers of software programs could author unique sets of computer code that enable the design and assembly of these programs. In essence, the convergence of human brainpower, artistic creativity, and computer code could help generate custom editions of flowcharts that power landmarks in modern program design.
The pervasive levels of digital connectivity enabled by the World Wide Web can promote fast, functional connections between project chart desktop programs resident at a central location and connected handheld devices used by a dispersed workforce. In such scenarios, designers of these project charts must complete and transmit updates to all stakeholders at regular intervals of time for the duration of a project. This stance represents a certain discipline in operational matters, reflects on the work ethos of sponsor organizations, and encourages adherence to timelines. New additions of information and graphics could be color coded in specific tints, thereby spotlighting upgraded content in the display devices of all stakeholders. Additionally – completed segments, when digitally archived and presented as web links for the benefit of stakeholders, enable designers to preserve an element of continuity in content representation. A flowchart could help document the various stages (and attendant imperatives) that drive such routines outside of the core mechanics of an ongoing project.
Project information organized inside differentiated blank spaces (such as tables) can boost the functionality of flowcharts that describe project chart desktop programs. Such an instance can gain shape as a table that features multiple headers such as tasks, owners, deadlines, revisions, and locations. An accurate inflow of detailed information makes such tables a self-contained universe of project-related information, a stylized to-do list if you will. When nested inside flowcharts, such tables emanate specific meaning and context that connect with stakeholders at various levels. These tables can also serve as visuals that motivate individual stakeholders to perform to expectations; additionally, the table functions as a lodestone that spurs collective actions in the context of the master project. Further, these populated spaces enable the rapid representation of revisions if required by any project, thereby retaining significant levels of cohesion in the modes of delivering updated information to stakeholders.
Relationships between tasks that comprise a project must find clear, effective representation inside project chart desktop programs. The terms ‘sequential‘, ‘linear‘, and ‘parallel‘ denote the prime qualifiers that distinguish various types of tasks that animate modern projects. In keeping with this, designers must work with project architects to identify each set of tasks that qualify for the labels listed above. Subsequent to such identification, designers can schedule project activities with the intent to generate motive force toward project completion. Such design techniques can potentially generate additional complexity in visual images of flowcharts; therefore, a remedy that hinges on separate illustrations could help bring together complete editions of project chart desktop programs. Alternatively, sequential tasks could feature in one distinctive diagram; similarly, other categories of tasks could find illustration inside different diagrams. Designers must actively work to establish and spotlight connections that emerge between these silos of information in the interests of driving progress in projects.
This exposition variously illustrates the utility of flowcharts (and similar diagrams) in designing the different aspects of project chart desktop programs. These charts gain definitive form and high levels of functionality when designers construct individual sections inside flowcharts. Such a stance allows clarity to emerge, aids project architects to build and reinforce meaning and context, and promotes effective transmission of information to all stakeholders. Additionally – the use of modern software packages allows for fast and efficient rendering of these diagrams inside digital displays; these packages allow designers to tweak the technical parameters of illustrations and smoothly position multiple silos of content inside expansive diagrams. In enabling these, the flowchart helps validate a series of choices that helps project charts to fulfil their intended destiny.
