Gantt Chart Explained

Introduction:

Gantt Chart is one of the most important tools in project management. It helps to keep a track on the project “timeline Vs Activities Vs Team working”.

To make it easier, let’s start from the basics and by the end of this content you will be clear on what is Gantt Chart and its advantages.

Things required to build a Gantt Chart:

• Activities list which has to be completed during the course of project.
• Team which is going to work on each of the activities planned in the previous step.
• Timelines associated with each of the activities.

Once the above is ready, its time to build a Gantt Chart with the following example.

• E Commerce Website Design – done by Website Design Team – Duration 15 days (Independent)
• Database integration – Done by Database team – Duration 4 days (Independent)
• Product Integration and Update – Done by Marketing team – Duration 20 days – Independent
• Payment Gateway Integration – Duration 5 days – Should start when the activity 3 crossed 15 days.

Explanation:

Lets imagine a basic graph which has X Axis and Y Axis. X Axis has the timeline of the project and Y Axis has Activities to be completed. (Ref Figure). The Bar represents the activities (Y Axis) which has to be performed on the particular time (X Axis).

This Gantt chart will help the team to have a look at a single table and understand what is happening right now with a help of a marker which tells us where we are and what is missing (if any).

In some cases, the timelines overlap as in Activities 3 and 4 where activity 4 starts when the acitvity 3 is still under process. In this way we can understand which activities overlap and how it has to be carried out.

This is the advantage of using a Gantt Chart and it can be build using various tools online, but the easy one is Windows Excel