Gantt chart Tool

A Gantt chart is a type of bar chart that is used to illustrate any activity schedule. This chart lists the tasks to be performed on the vertical axis, and time intervals on the horizontal axis. The width of the horizontal bars in the graph shows the duration of each activity.  Gantt charts illustrate the start and finish dates of the activities and also of summary activities (referred as hammock activity) of a project. Modern Gantt charts also show the dependency (i.e., precedence network with arrow) relationships between activities. Gantt charts can also be used to show current schedule status using percent-complete shadings in the form of a “tracking gantt” chart.

This scheduling technique was devised by an engineer L Henry Gantt in 1917. The Gantt charts can be drawn manually if they are simple ones, and one can use software packages such as Microsoft Project or even Excel to create more complex Gantt charts. The vertical axis will show all the tasks and the horizontal axis will show the timeline of tasks split either in days or weeks or months or quarters or even in hours depending upon the length and duration of the project.

Gantt charts are widely used in project scheduling. Gantt charts are very easy to read and follow in comparison to the traditional network diagrams.

Making a Gantt chart (An example)

We should take the following steps to create a Gantt chart schedule.

1. List down all the tasks/activities of your project or event 
2. Estimate the duration for each of the tasks
3. Identify the dependency between the tasks (identify the predecessor for each task)
4. Start drawing the Gantt chart schedule by connecting the activities in accordance with the predecessors for each task
5. Insert the milestone tasks (generally as zero duration tasks to show significant events) at right places in the flow
6. Assign the early start date of the first tasks in the network, all the start date and end dates of subsequent tasks will be calculated (if using a scheduling software)

Advantages and uses of Gantt chart

Here are five reasons why you should use Gantt charts in project management:

1. Helps in identifying all tasks: When you set up a Gantt chart, you’ll be forced to think through all the tasks involved in each of your work packages in the WBS of your project. This process allows you to better understand and define the scope of your project and all the necessary tasks, rather than just jumping into the project with no clarity.
2. Establishing the dependencies clearly: All the dependencies between tasks are shown clearly showing the flow of the tasks.
3. Helps in identifying the critical path: Once you have created a Gantt chart, we can identify the critical path (the path with longest duration) of the schedule. Critical path tasks will then become most important tasks from scheduling point of view. If any of the critical path tasks will be delayed, then the entire schedule will get delayed.
4. Visually inform your team about progress: The visual depiction of progress information through Gantt charts let you quickly communicate your team’s progress and show which tasks have been completed.
5. Simplify the complex network diagram: Gantt chart visually presents the sequence of tasks in a very simple manner vis-à-vis a network diagram. It becomes very easy to understand and follow even if there will be a large number of tasks.

Conclusion

Gantt charts are very useful tool for scheduling and have become one of the most popular methods for showing project schedules. It is very easy to read and understand. Various software packages are available to draw a schedule using Gantt chart.