Exploring the use of Gantt charts for managing high-energy physics analyses

Gantt charts are a visualization tool used in long-term project planning to keep track of multiple tasks and goals, some of which may depend on the completion of other tasks. The ability to see and coordinate many parallel or serialized tasks is critical to construction projects that operate on deadlines and with finite budgets. This is similar to many thesis or related research projects where there are many moving parts, a defense date that needs to be satisfied, and an advisor who has a fixed amount of money to support the student or post-doc. An added challenge for new graduate students is that it is difficult to see the entire scope of their project and all the relationships between tasks and they may not develop this understanding until the project is actually completed! We are exploring the use of Gantt charts as an organization tool for analyses within CMS, both as a learning tool and for the purpose of tracking progress on any given study. We have collected responses from members of the CMS collaboration as to whether or not this type of tool would be effective and also tried to learn how analysts see the different parts of their project. The results of this survey will be presented.