Gantt Charts
A Gantt chart is a horizontal bar chart developed as a production control tool and provides a graphical illustration of a schedule that helps to plan, coordinate, and track specific tasks in a project.
A Gantt chart is constructed with a horizontal axis representing the total time span of the project, broken down into increments (for example, days, weeks, or months) and a vertical axis representing the tasks that make up the project.
When would you use a gantt chart?
- To identify the process for project planning
- Mapping out processes
- Keep track of a project
What does a gantt chart show?
- What the activities are
- When each activity starts and ends
- How long each activity is scheduled to last
- Where activities overlap with each other and by how much
- The start and end dat/time of the whole project
Gantt chart advantages:
Gantt chart disadvantages:
A Gantt chart is constructed with a horizontal axis representing the total time span of the project, broken down into increments (for example, days, weeks, or months) and a vertical axis representing the tasks that make up the project.
When would you use a gantt chart?
- To identify the process for project planning
- Mapping out processes
- Keep track of a project
What does a gantt chart show?
- What the activities are
- When each activity starts and ends
- How long each activity is scheduled to last
- Where activities overlap with each other and by how much
- The start and end dat/time of the whole project
Gantt chart advantages:
- Allows for efficient organization – In order for a Gantt chart to be successful, you first need to identify project elements or tasks. If you are using this type of chart you are essentially forced to focus on what truly needs to be done, thus making you somewhat more organized and encouraging a potentially higher chance of success.
- Helps establish timeframes – Because many project elements often depend on other tasks, it can be tough to deduce how long one task should take and when to start and finish it by. Gantt charts use bars to indicate how long a task should take and what this does is give you a better perspective of the total project, and timeframe as a whole. Just be sure to consider time factors outside of the project such as holidays.
- Highly visual – Gantt charts are visual, and give you an excellent way to instantly see and comprehend all of the different elements in once place, thus bringing thoughts and ideas together. Beyond that the visuals provide users with an easy to see chart of what needs to be done next.
Gantt chart disadvantages:
- Potentially overly complex – If you’ve ever worked on a complex project, and looked at the Gantt chart, you know that these charts can be large and hard to read. For big projects businesses may need to hire specific managers to look after the details of the project, something which could be costly for small businesses that don’t have an in house project manager.
- Need to be updated – Gantt charts are developed early in the planning stages of a project, there is a good chance that the project will change, thus the chart will need to be updated. Also, as tasks are completed or reviewed the chart will need to be updated to reflect these changes too. Any amendments take time, especially if there are dependent tasks that need to also be revised. It is a pretty sure thing that most people involved in the project probably don’t have the time to do this
- Don’t show the whole picture – Gantt charts show what tasks need to be done and the time they should take. They don’t show how much work each task will involve or how many people/resources each task will require. This can give some people an incomplete picture or the wrong idea about an individual task, which can cause issues as the project gets underway.
- Gantt charts don't indicate task dependencies - you cannot tell how one task falling behind schedule affects other tasks.
Gantt chart example