What is Gantt Chart in Project Management?

The Projects usually contain multiple tasks and activities. As a Project Professional, when you want to manage a complex project, it can be not easy to track the tasks, their relationships, duration, and status. A single change in one task can affect the progression of a project and thus, it is important to understand the inter-relationship among the different tasks.

Gantt Chart helps us manage the timelines of the project. This article covers a detailed guide on the Gantt Chart, its features, and use cases so that you can manage your project execution efficiently.

A Gantt Chart is a visual project management timeline that consists of horizontal bars, usually color-coded.

1. These bars show all the project tasks, when they are due, who is responsible, and how long each task will take.
2. Therefore, Gantt charts illustrate the start and finish dates of the terminal elements and summary elements of a project.
3. In other words, the Gantt chart assembles all pieces of tasks that are relative to a fixed deadline.

Essentially, a Gantt chart arranges project tasks on a visual timeline, making it simple for project, programme, and portfolio managers to sketch out project plans. Gantt charts are utilised in resource management, project planning, project scheduling, and project tracking, among many other areas.

• Break down the project into manageable tasks, identify dependencies, and allocate resources effectively.
• Determine the sequence and duration of tasks, establishing a timeline for the project.
• Monitor the progress of tasks, compare planned versus actual timelines, and identify any delays or issues.
• Share project plans and progress with stakeholders, team members, and clients in a clear and understandable format.
• Ensure that all team members are aware of their responsibilities and deadlines, facilitating collaboration and coordination within the project.

The American mechanical engineer and management consultant Henry Gantt is honoured with the moniker Gantt chart, which he invented in the 1910s. This visual scheduling tool was created by Gantt to help in managing and controlling the production of items in manufacturing environments. His invention of Gantt charts, which are still widely used in many industries today, had a major role in the advancement of project management techniques.

Gantt charts could initially appear difficult. However, if you can interpret them, you’ll be able to determine precisely where your initiatives stand and what has to be done to steer them towards success.

Understanding how the various components work together to create a gantt chart is the key to reading one. Here are the following components of a Gantt Chart:

• Task list
• Timeline
• Dateline
• Bars
• Milestones
• Dependencies
• Progress
• Resource assigned

Here are the following features of the Gantt Chart:

1. Helps in Project Management

The Gantt Chart gives us a high-level interpretation of the Project timeline using which we can schedule our Project Delivery, wrap up the pending tasks, and extend the timeline according to the requirement.

2. Simple to Use

It has a drag-and-drop feature that enables us to easily make changes or update the timeframes of the tasks.

3. Supports Integration with Existing Projects

You can easily integrate the Gantt Chart into your existing Project Workflow. Therefore, you do not need to create the Gantt Log from scratch.

4. Ideal for Complex Projects

If the project structure is complex with multiple tasks or issues and the subtasks within them, the Gantt Chart serves as a proven solution to easily manage the complex work breakdown structure.

5. Provides Useful Insights along with Timelines

A Gantt chart does not only deliver an overview of the sequence of events, but it also provides important information for project managers. Also, it visualizes the critical path and hence guides the schedulers’ attention to those activities that are crucial and deserve a specific treatment

Although creating a Gantt Chart depends on multiple factors such as project status, its current phase, team size, deadlines, structure of tasks, and subtasks, it is easy to create it for your Project. The various steps in creating the Gantt Chart are stated below.

• Step 1: List out every task you will need to complete to finish the project. For example, you can mention tasks such as Backend Configuration, Database Integration, Testing and Validation, Deployment, etc.
• Step 2: Define chronological order and put each task in order of when it needs to be done. Also, identify whether some tasks depend on others or they need to be completed before any other tasks.
• Step 3: Estimate how much time it will take you to complete each task to a level of quality that has been defined during the requirement elicitation and gathering.
• Step 4: In this step, assign a realistic due date and start dates for each task. You should analyze whether the task execution will need some extra time or not.
• Step 5: Fill up your Gantt Chart and Continuously update your Gantt chart with actual timelines.

We can easily create a Gantt Chart for our Project with the above steps. An example of a Gantt Chart is shown below including the Work Breakdown Structure, their due status, progress, and other information.

Gantt charts are commonly used by project managers, team leaders, and stakeholders across various industries such as construction, manufacturing, software development, event planning, and research, to visualize project schedules, track progress, and manage tasks effectively. Here are a few of teams that use Gantt charts to Plan, Schedule, and execute the projects:

• Construction
• Consulting agencies
• Engineering firms
• Event planning
• Human resources
• Marketing teams
• Manufacturing
• Software development

Here are the following advantages of Gantt Chart:

1. Easy identification of tasks: The Gantt Chart helps us to easily identify the various tasks, their inter-relation, and the Progress of the tasks.
2. Helps to evaluate critical resources utilization: We can evaluate the critical Resources and their utilization, Dependencies, and Impacts of schedule changes in the Gantt Chart. Along with this, we can also create Visual alerts in case of scheduling conflicts.
3. Helps to manage tasks order: The Gantt chart equips the project experts with the capabilities to manage the order in which tasks need to be carried out so that we can easily identify the priority of the activities. In Project Execution.

Here are the following disadvantages of Gantt Chart:

1. Time-consuming: Setting up the Gantt Chart includes various activities such as planning the tasks, resources, timelines, due dates, dependencies, etc. This makes the Gantt Chart a time-consuming tool for the project.
2. Can turn into complex sheets: Putting too much information about the Project timelines can turn the Gantt Chart into complex sheets, due to which timeline management becomes challenging.
3. Sometimes tough to update Gantt Chart: If the Project includes the switching between multiple tools and platforms for the task execution, it is tough to update the Gantt Chart we need to configure it repeatedly, as the workflow switches to another platform.

The Gantt Chart has evolved into various forms according to the dynamic workflow in modern software development. Thus, we must figure out where the Gannt Chart is exactly suitable. You should select the Gantt Chart as your timeline management tool if you want to:

1. Manage the complex project structure with a huge number of tasks and subtasks within them.
2. Give priority to the timeline of the deliverables associated with your Project so that the end user can be satisfied.
3. Identify the relations and dependencies among the various tasks in the Project to make them organized for sequential execution.

Gantt charts are compatible with most project management techniques, including waterfall and agile, so they may be used to plan, schedule, and monitor projects of many sizes and industries.

Gantt Charts in Waterfall Planning

Planning a project in successive phases is the foundation of waterfall project management. Without making significant alterations to the initial project plan, these phases are preplanned and then carried out sequentially from start to finish. Such projects are best mapped out using Gantt charts, which give project managers the ability to see job dependencies and set task sequences on a timeline.

Gantt Charts in Agile Planning

Agile planning, as opposed to waterfall planning, involves organising one- to two-week agile sprints, during which teams organise and carry out their work. Following that, they hold quick meetings to discuss how they performed and to plan the upcoming sprint. Despite the fact that Gantt charts aren’t frequently used for sprint planning, agile teams can see their projects’ overall scope by using them to lay out their project plan or product development roadmap.

While there are additional project management approaches that can be used for particular sectors or scenarios, these two approaches are typically employed to manage projects. Looking at some Gantt chart examples, however, is the best method to comprehend how they are utilised in project management.

Here are a few examples of how Gantt charts can be used:

1. Construction Projects: Gantt charts help construction project managers schedule tasks like excavation, building, and finishing work, ensuring that each phase is completed on time and in the correct sequence.
2. Software Development: In software development, Gantt charts assist teams in planning tasks such as coding, testing, and debugging, providing a visual timeline to coordinate efforts and meet project milestones.
3. Event Planning: Event planners use Gantt charts to organize tasks like venue booking, vendor coordination, and marketing, enabling them to manage multiple aspects of an event simultaneously and ensure everything is ready by the event date.
4. Research Projects: Researchers utilize Gantt charts to plan research activities such as literature review, data collection, analysis, and writing, helping them stay on track and manage their time effectively throughout the project.

Related Articles:

• Short Note on Gantt Chart
• Gantt Chart Example for Project Proposal
• By Using Gantt chart, Plan the Project work streams
• How to Make a Gantt Chart in Excel
• Steps to Build a Project Management Timeline
• How to Create Gantt Chart in Google Sheets

Gantt Charts are the tools to graphically present the progress of a project. They help make the Management of a project easier by outlining them as small manageable items. They include the complete project timelines where dependencies are visually illustrated, parallel processes are discovered, the overall processing time is determined and progress is tracked. The Gantt Charts enable us to view all subtasks of a task graphically.

1. How Gantt Chart is different from the RACI Chart?

Gantt Chart gives major priority to the timelines of the Projects through which the project delivery is managed. However, the RACI Chart is focused on the roles and responsibilities of various stakeholders associated with the Project. It includes Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed members of the team.

2. What is the difference between the Gantt Chart in Waterfall and the Gantt Chart in Agile?

The Waterfall Model is based on the linear sequential approach for managing the project. Thus, when the Gantt Chart is created for the waterfall-based Project, it focuses on the sequence of the tasks and activities. On the other hand, Agile focuses on flexibility and adaptability. This is the reason why the Gantt Chart for an Agile process focuses on how the execution of one task affects the other task.

3. How to manage the Task Dependencies in the Gantt Chart?

You can use the dependencies of tasks in four ways. First is the Finish to Start (FS) which means that one task must be completed before the next can start. Second is the Start to Start (SS) dependency in which, several tasks can begin simultaneously. And, the third refers to the Finish to Finish (FF) according to which a task cannot end until the previous one is completed. Lastly, the fourth one is Start to Finish (SF) where one task cannot end until another is started.

4. What type of teams or professionals mostly use the Gantt Chart for Agile Project Management?

The Project Managers and Lead Executives use the Gantt chart to manage the project timeline. However, it can also be used by business owners and top-management professionals for managing the deadlines of various business processes.