Ganntt Chart

Scheduling and tracking the project progress is very important aspect of any project development. Be it any methodology one adopts, a project’s success depends on effective tracking of project milestones. Back in 1910-1915 Henry Grantt an American Engineer and consultant developed a tool for systematic and routine operations tracking and thus how Gantt Charts came into existence. Prior to that another similar tool called as “Harmonogram” developed by Karol Adamiecki in 1896,but it was very complex. Grantt Chart’s user friendliness increased it’s popularity. It’s not just regular project development but Gantt Charts played an important role during World War 1 by US military to plan and execute the war campaigns. It is one of the most widely used tool to show the milestones of and growth of project by representing activities against time Gantt Chart is a bar chart with project tasks marked on vertical axis against the time lines which is marked in the horizontal axis.

Traditionally Gantt Charts used to be prepared on papers unlike today using various software like excel and several other project management tools. While creating a Gantt Chart a few important aspects should be considered such as project deliverables, deadlines, milestones, dependencies that could take a hit on timeline, team members and their roles.

Benefits of Gantt Chart are as follows-

• A Gantt Chart helps the Project Manager and team to understand how the whole project can be broken into smaller chunks of tasks or activities, how to schedule the tasks, duration of each task and to whom the task has been assigned.
• Gantt Chart ensures that the task is diligently assigned to all the resources and thus improves the efficiency and productivity. Also it ensures that the resources are not overburdened by the workload.
• Communication is a key for the success of any project, Gantt Chat assures the transparency amongst the team members. Each team member can update the details and percentage of task accomplished by them. Thereby giving a quick update on the project status and make necessary changes if the team is trailing behind the schedu
• Gantt Chart keeps the team on the same page thereby avoids any confusion there by finish up the project in given deadline and within the approved budget.
• It equips the team to understand get a 360 degree view of the project and understand each and every aspect of the project
• Gantt Chart allows the team to be creative. By keeping a track on the milestones achieved it gives the team a bandwidth to be creative and let them explore new ideas.
• It make the process of project development easy by breaking the complex tasks into smaller ones and present them in a simplified manner.
• It allows the Project Manager to handle any unforeseen even or any unfortunate event effectively. They can take prompt and effective measures to manage any changes requested.
• Other few important information one can derive from Grantt Chart is the inter-dependencies of tasks in the project, reminds about important meetings, approvals and deadlines and the progress of each task.