A Gantt chart is a type of bar chart that illustrates a project schedule in terms of project activities against time. It was first introduced in the 1910’s by Henry Gantt in his effort to visualize project management timelines, and is now the most popular tool among traditional and modern project management methods worldwide.

It is easy to understand the structure of a Gantt chart: it consists mostly of bars and connections between them. The bars represent the start and finish dates of tasks while the connections represent dependencies among them (for example a task has to be completed before the execution of the next task begins).

Gantt charts in Project Management

On a previous article, we discussed about how you can Empower Project Management with Gantt Charts. The reason why Gantt charts are so extensively used in project management is that they visualize the entire project information (project start and finish dates, task execution status -completed, running or overdue-, project priorities and personnel availability in each phase of the project) in one view.

Having all this information in one single view can help managers better schedule their time and deliver remarkable results. This way they can easily avoid missing a deadline or executing a task out of sequence.

How to create a Gantt chart

The process of creating a Gantt chart consist of the planning and visualization sub processes.

Planning

During the planning sub process, you have to list all the project tasks that must be completed and the important milestones. Determine the expected start and end date of each task and whether there are any dependencies between them. Another thing you should take under consideration is the resource planning. Make sure to assign tasks in a way that work packages will not overlap for involved team members and that scheduling will be flexible to change in the future without affecting the execution and outcomes.

Visualization

There are many ways to visualize a Gantt chart but the most popular so far are using excel sheets or online software tools.

1. Using excel

Excel cells and bar charts have been used to represent tasks for years. This method is more traditional and it offers limited functionality but it has a lot of adopters because of the simplicity of the planning process. In case you decide to follow this method for your project, collect the tasks along with their scheduled start & end time in an excel document and use this data to produce a graph with bars. You can find many useful resources on the internet, like step-by-step video tutorials and excel product guides suggesting different ways in which you can use excel sheets for your task data visualization,. If you are seeking for something more than just a simple visualization, then you will have to go with the second method as described below.

2. Using an online Software solution

Online software tools are designed and implemented especially for project managers. In this case, Gantt charts are mostly connected to project entities that include a lot more information than just scheduled start and end dates. These entities are usually connected to tasks, processes, accounts, requirements, deliverables and any relevant information that may be useful during the execution. Bars and dependencies can be added with drag and drop functionality while smart notifications keep the team updated about changes, deadlines and progress. Identifying the best pm software may take a lot of time and effort since every company has its own needs, but Capterra listing of the best project management tools or Quora user forums may make the evaluation process easier for you.

Excel in the use of Gantt Charts

A Gantt chart can help you strengthen your project management skills, come up with patterns that will make your job easier and identify weaknesses that will be used to change the strategic planning of your projects. Your needs are also something that will potentially change multiple times as your business grows and expands its activity. Having this in mind, is the key to excel in the use of Gantt charts. Your final decision on which software to choose must depend on the needs of your future company, not your current.

How to choose your Gantt chart maker

We have discussed in a previous post about the 27 + 1 features a project management software should include. To choose the best software, make a list of requirements and apply demanding use cases on tools to check their performance.

Flexibility and collaboration will help you make the difference. An experienced project manager may find a million ways to use a software by applying different pm methodologies and execution patterns. The pm tool must be able to support experimenting and be open to further customization.

Comidor online Gantt chart

Comidor Project Management is used by companies in the project management industry all over the world. The reason they choose Comidor to manage multinational projects is that it can be applied to all business departments connecting projects with documents, operations and people. Comidor is flexible, easy to use and can be fully customized. Templates are used in combination with workflows to automate repetitive procedures and improve productivity.

A pm tool is used by project managers of all business departments. No advanced IT skills are needed to get familiar with Comidor user interface and roles protect sensitive information from being viewed by everyone.

Check out Comidor Project Management Features:

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What is an on-line Gantt chart?

A Gantt chart is a visual tool to show the scheduled and actual progress of projects and it is being used for more than 100 years, as a management tool. More analytically, a Gantt chart gives valuable information about:

• The various activities within a project
• Each start/ending of the activities
• The duration of the activities
• The connection/ relation between the activities
• Project start/ end

As stated on www.gantt.com, it shows who has to do what and when, and this is typically shows with bar-type diagrams, as shown below:

Why you should have your Gantt chart on-line?

As Project Management is not something new, Gantt chart is also shown that is been there for about a century. Nowadays, what matters most is efficiency maximization and having the information spread with the speed of the internet, to the right person (stakeholders) is vital. However, there are a few things you should be aware, according to Orange Business Serviceswhich marks the pros and cons of using Gantt charts:

 Advantages:  

• – You shape the big picture of the project’s complexity
• – You point your thoughts about how to organize the works need to be carried out
• – You declare capacity in what you’re doing
• – You consider time constraints
• – You offer transparency to the stakeholders   

Disadvantages: 

• – You can often flirt with high complexity on some projects
• – The annotation system (bars) represent time and amount of work
• – Unless it will be highly maintained during the project lifetime, it loses value
• – Usually it’s rather difficult to be sheen in one scroll/ page

Available Gantt chart software products on-line.

There are two options available, in general. The first is to get a Gantt as an independent tool, or to make a selection of a bigger platform, usually a Project Management platform. We’ve seen, and surely we will be seeing teams to use standard Excels to carry on with work scheduling, cope to communicate files stored on local or shared drives. The PM software market is vast, it is highly advisable to research on trustworthy platforms that evaluate software, such as www.capterra.com.

Using on-line Gantt chart with Comidor

Among the major vendors in Project & Business Processes Management, Comidor offers rich functionality with its powerful Gantt charts. What makes Comidor Gantt charts unique, is the ease and quick on-boarding (assignments) to Working Packages. There is a whole mechanism (users see nothing apart who to assign and how to notify) that serves interconnection of different type of information, such as files, calendars, tasks, contracts, which are linked within different phases of a project.  You can check out more about Comidor on the related Capterra review, or directly have a go for Comidor trial on-line with full technical support

The post On-line Gantt Chart first: Selecting your next PM Software. appeared first on Comidor Low-code Automation Platform.

From our perspective, Project Management serves the utilization of Fayol’s theory, placing in the center of interest PLANNING, ORGANIZING, COMMANDING, CO-ORDINATING & CONTROLLING. During the same years, Henry Gantt (1861-1919) developed the so-called Gantt chart, a visual tool to show scheduled and actual progress of projects. Since then, the core need is data interpretation in the most suitable way, to clearly design activities over time, as well as to have access to the big picture (overall progress) and to fine detail at the same time.

We have established over the years widely appreciated methodologies to govern projects, which work fantastic in theory. However, Project Management (PM) is a rather social activity, which in most of the cases require human interaction. In theory again, communications are assumed that take place, and similarly, information flow streams are available to the stakeholders. In fact, 1 out of 5 project are unsuccessful due to ineffective communications. Unfortunately technology was not there from the very beginning, nevertheless it’s now better than ever, compared to old times.

What technology contributed vastly in PM, is internet and software. With the use of software, Gantt charts became extremely sharp in terms of information that can be carried during a project’s lifecycle, and can clearly map activities split in packages, connected with milestones & deliverables, with multiple level of dependencies and connection with documents and business processes visible to the stakeholders.  The big picture was never that informative and multidimensional in the past. With the use of Internet, on-line gantt charts became a controlling superpower, since working packages could instantly be communicated, as well as changes on schedules and people.

Let’s bring this to projects as part of the business. Being able to clearly communicate the working schedules and its progress instantly, translates “to run projects efficiently is to deliver earnings”.

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