In addition, I planned and organized shower parties for my friends, our department's christmas parties and summer outings, family & neighborhood christmas parties and other special events, I also facilitated a few parlor games.
Some of the tools I like to use are the following:
a) Gantt Chart - I've been using gantt chart since my college days because it is a very useful project management chart that aids in planning a project having many components and team members. A Gantt chart plans the tasks that need to be completed, sets a timeline for the tasks, plans the allocation of resources and creates critical paths for tasks. The steps below will guide you through creating a Gantt chart for your new project.
A Gantt chart is a type of bar chart that illustrates a project schedule. Gantt charts illustrate the start and finish dates of the terminal elements and summary elements of a project. Terminal elements and summary elements comprise the work breakdown structure of the project. Some Gantt charts also show the dependency (i.e., precedence network) relationships between activities. Gantt charts can be used to show current schedule status using percent-complete shadings and a vertical "TODAY" line as shown here.
Although now regarded as a common charting technique, Gantt charts were considered revolutionary when they were introduced. In recognition of Henry Gantt's contributions, the Henry Laurence Gantt Medal is awarded for distinguished achievement in management and in community service. This chart is used also in Information Technology to represent data that have been collected.
b) FishBone Diagram - One technique for analyzing complex problems that appear to have many interrelated causes is called a case and effect or "Ishikawa" diagram. Fishbone Diagrams are helpful in clearly identifying the relationship between a topic and all of the possible factors that relate to it.
Ishikawa diagrams (also called fishbone diagrams or cause-and-effect diagrams) are diagrams that show the causes of a certain event. Common uses of the Ishikawa diagram are product design and quality defect prevention, to identify potential factors causing an overall effect. Each cause or reason for imperfection is a source of variation. Causes are usually grouped into major categories to identify these sources of variation. The categories typically include:
* People: Anyone involved with the process
* Methods: How the process is performed and the specific requirements for doing it, such as policies, procedures, rules, regulations and laws
* Machines: Any equipment, computers, tools etc. required to accomplish the job
* Materials: Raw materials, parts, pens, paper, etc. used to produce the final product
* Measurements: Data generated from the process that are used to evaluate its quality
* Environment: The conditions, such as location, time, temperature, and culture in which the process operates
Notes can then be sorted into folders, tagged, annotated, edited, given comments, and searched.
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