Gantt chart for project management is an essential tool that helps project managers to outline a project’s roadmap. It’s essentially a bar chart that coveys a project’s timeline, tasks, and the team members associated with each task. Furthermore, the Gantt chart enables teams to visualize how much time and resources they’ll need to complete a project and communicate to stakeholders a project’s timeline and how changes to the project scope affect the outcomes. So, in this article, we’ll discuss how to create a Gantt chart and its pros and cons.
Table of Contents
What Is the Gantt Chart?
A Gantt chart is a popular project management tool that visually represents a project’s timeline, tasks, and assigned team members. Therefore, project managers use it to plan, schedule, and track projects, ensuring deadlines are met and resources are allocated effectively.
In a Gantt chart, each horizontal bar represents a project task, with the length corresponding to the time required to complete it. These bars are designed on a progressive timeline, with each bar following the end of the previous bar. This technique is called the critical path method, where a project is broken up into tasks, and flexible schedules are determined for each task.
Many project managers use project management software, such as Wrike, ClickUp or Jira to create Gantt charts efficiently. Furthermore, they can adjust the project’s information in real-time, map out project milestones, assign team members to specific tasks, and insert deliverables.
How to Make a Gantt Chart
Gantt chart is a crucial tool for project management because it helps project managers to pinpoint timelines and meet commitment deadlines. The following are some steps to create a Gantt chart.
Outline Project Scope
Outlining the project scope is the first step to laying the groundwork for creating a Gantt chart. Therefore, when outlining the project scope, you must consider these elements:
- Project goals
- Timeline
- Key dates
- Team
- Resources
- Business case
- Key deliverables
- Budget
- Schedule
- Risks
- Objectives and key results
- Approvals
- Outcomes
Read More: Essential elements in project scope management
Determine Each Project Task Dependencies
In this step, the project manager should talk with stakeholders to determine which tasks have the greatest priority. Then, they can define the relationship among project tasks, which are called ‘task dependencies’ and at this point, you can decide the order in which tasks should be carried out and outline the Gantt chart with this information.
Organize the Individual Project Tasks in Chronological Order
With the project tasks and dependencies in hand, the project manager can organize them in chronological order. Then, estimate the time needed to complete each project task and extend the task for the expected duration on the Gantt chart.
Assign Project Tasks and Availability
In this step, the project manager should discuss team members’ availability and develop a realistic timeline for the project’s goals. Then, you can assign tasks to team members, define their roles, and ensure teammates communicate any potential roadblocks.
Monitor Project Progress
After creating a Gantt chart, you should update it throughout the project life cycle. As a project manager, you’re responsible for monitoring task progress and adjusting the Gantt chart accordingly. Furthermore, this will help you ensure tasks get completed on time. Moreover, this process provides opportunities to learn valuable lessons for success in their future projects.
Read More: Project planning in project management
Pros and cons of the Gantt chart
As a tool, the Gantt chart for project management is essential to visualize your project’s schedule, showing tasks, durations, and dependencies over time. The following are some pros and cons of the Gantt chart to help you decide when to use them.
Pros of Gantt Chart
- Gantt chart offers an easy-to-understand and clear visual representation of the entire project. As a project manager, you can see the timeline for each task, its dependencies on other tasks, and the overall project duration. This can be helpful for complex projects with multiple tasks and dependencies👍
- As a tool, the Gantt chart helps you to track project progress by monitoring the completion of tasks over time. Furthermore, they are flexible and can be adjusted as the project progresses reflecting changes in your project’s triple constraints👍
- Creating a Gantt chart will help you promote better planning and minimize the risk of overlooking crucial steps👍
- As a tool, the Gantt chart can help with resource allocation by visualizing which resources are needed for each task and when. This may help avoid scheduling conflicts and overloading, and ensure resources are used efficiently👍
Cons of Gantt Chart
- Creating and maintaining a Gantt chart can require much time and experience, which can be challenging for inexperienced users👎
- Changes to the project timeline or scope require manual adjustments to the chart, which can be time-consuming and error-prone👎
- Gantt charts can help with resource allocation but they don’t offer advanced features for managing resource capacity or skills👎
- If frequent changes in your project occur, you will need to take time to update your Gantt chart👎
FAQ
Does Microsoft Have a Gantt Chart?
Microsoft 365 subscription offers Gantt chart templates designed to help project managers track project tasks with visual reminders and color-oriented categories. However, if you don’t have a Microsoft 365 subscription or the latest Office version, you can try it now:
Does Google Have a free Gantt Chart?
Yes, you can install the free Gantt chart app from the GSuite marketplace to your Google account.
Conclusion
Gantt chart for project management plays a crucial role throughout the project. Outlining project scope, determining each project task dependencies, organizing the individual project tasks in chronological order, assigning project tasks and availability, and monitoring project progress are the steps for creating a Gantt chart. Using this tool you can acquire both pros and cons. Prons include visualization, improved project planning, resource allocation, and progress tracking. Cons include complexity, time-consuming, and limited resource management.
