Why do managers make you spend hours making bullshit schedules?

[Howard Alan Treesong]

"How many days is it going to take you to translate a project of unspecified word count, scope, features, and delivery date?"

"Once you've determined that, could you let me know exactly which days in July you'll be spending on this task?"

"Thanks!"

[Eric P]

metrics ruin everything.

[Howard Alan Treesong]

I don't know what my work load is going to look like 4 weeks from now. Trying to schedule stuff on a DAILY granularity through the next six months is so worthless the mind boggles.

[Robo]

I remember going over this long-term time estimation in a senior level project management-esque class in university and no one could ever seem to explain how the fuck this is supposed to work. 

Thankfully, all the scheduling I do is on a very small scale, usually weekly.

[Howard Alan Treesong]

I can make a great gantt chart of what needs to be accomplished, what's dependent on what, and how long each task will take--for me and mine

I just can't tell you what the fuck off EXTERNAL dependencies are going to be up to 180 solar days from now

[Eric P]

I just can't tell you what the fuck off EXTERNAL dependencies are going to be up to 180 solar days from now

and you never will with that attitude

[Howard Alan Treesong]

I think I just discovered the premise for the Hasbro Ouija movie.

John Smith, middle-manager, discovers that posing questions to his daughter's Ouija board allows him to make Gantt charts with startling accuracy. His unerring eye for unpredictable detail allows him to quickly rise in the ranks.

But when the Ouija board starts predicting the deaths of his coworkers and friends...is there any way for John to fight his fate? Or is the future impossible to change?

Find out in OUIJA: THE MOVIE brought to you by MS Project 2007

[Tauntaun]

Cause a lot of times managers have their heads so far up their butts they can't breath properly and that lack of oxygen makes them order you to do the most pointless thing possible.

[Robo]

Could also be the plot for MAGIC 8-BALL: THE MOVIE

or I CHING: THE MOVIE

[disgruntled_jojo]

Could also be the plot for MAGIC 8-BALL: THE MOVIE

Outlook not so good

[Howard Alan Treesong]

Could also be the plot for MAGIC 8-BALL: THE MOVIE

Outlook not so good

MAGIC 8-BALL: THE MOVIE is brought to you by Mozilla Thunderbird

[disgruntled_jojo]

metrics ruin everything.

Thus why we use the Imperial system!

[Howard Alan Treesong]

metrics ruin everything.

Thus why we use the Imperial system!

My schedule is about as precise as Imperial stormtroopers, sure

[TVC15]

metrics ruin everything.

Thus why we use the Imperial system!

My schedule is about as precise as Imperial stormtroopers, sure

My schedule is pretty nailed down on a what needs to be done by what day basis, but at the same time, I have no idea what the VOLUME of "what needs to be done" is until like, two weeks in advance.

[disgruntled_jojo]

You need to send your boss your Gantt Chart along with a link to the wikipedia entry  :

Limitations

Gantt charts only represent part of the triple constraints of projects, because they focus primarily on schedule management. Moreover, Gantt charts do not represent the size of a project or the relative size of work elements, therefore the magnitude of a behind-schedule condition is easily miscommunicated. If two projects are the same number of days behind schedule, the larger project has a larger impact on resource utilization, yet the Gantt does not represent this difference.

Although project management software can show schedule dependencies as lines between activities, displaying a large number of dependencies may result in a cluttered or unreadable chart.

Because the horizontal bars of a Gantt chart have a fixed height, they can misrepresent the time-phased workload (resource requirements) of a project. In the example shown in this article, Activities E and G appear to be the same size, but in reality they may be orders of magnitude different. A related criticism is that all activities of a Gantt chart show planned workload as constant. In practice, many activities (especially summary elements) have front-loaded or back-loaded work plans, so a Gantt chart with percent-complete shading may actually miscommunicate the true schedule performance status.