Published on July 9th, 2019 | by Bibhuranjan

Introduction to Gantt Charts

Gantt Chart is a useful graphical tool which has become a staple of Project Management and is used to show the activities or tasks performed against time. It is the visual presentation of a project, where the tasks which are to be performed are broken down and framed on the vertical axis and the scheduled time taken by each activity is shown on the horizontal axis. This makes it easy to understand and interpret.

The Impact and Benefits of Gantt Charts

Beginning a new project can be terrifying, pressuring and terrorizing especially if you do not know how to maintain and keep it on track. It may be a small and creative project or big and sizable purchasing and selling expedition or campaign. And therefore, Project Management plays a vital role.

Let us start and know about the great benefits and advantages we can get by adopting Gantt Charts.

Accuracy and Simplicity of Tasks:

It shows various dependencies and interlinkages between activities which is very important to understand and monitor in a project. The start and end information of the other activities can be easily fetched, and this makes it important because of the interconnection between the hitched activities. This is because if one activity gets postponed, it will affect the other activities too. It helps in knowing the depth and gives a better understanding of the relationship between the tasks and allows to organize the tasks properly.

To create a Gantt Chart you can use a simple tool like Gantt Chart Excel. Gantt Chart Excel is an excel based template and hence easy to use. You should be able to create a Gantt Chart in a few minutes.

Better Planning, Organizing and Listing of Tasks:

No department can work efficiently and effectively without proper planning and organization. This tool converts a complicated task to an understandable and easy one. It is a better way to plan and organize tasks according to the timeline of the project. Usage of Gantt Charts has made the project work easy and manageable to managers and teams, because they can break the project into a set of tasks which helps in reducing the potential for overburdening team members and helps in understanding their key milestones. It keeps the management updated about the completion of the project and any additional source required between the working. Managing the dependencies between the tasks promises successful completion of every task and sub task within the desired timespan.

Better Communication and Team Unity:

Good communication is a very important tool in obtaining, accomplishing and maintaining strong working relationships at all levels of an organization. It is an essential and requisite element between managers, staff and stakeholders that can make or break a project. The biggest failure of a project is the lack of communication. On the other hand, Gantt Chart is equipped with transpicuous, lucid and more productive communication. The Project Management can use these charts for getting a better idea as to who is doing what and how one is doing it. One can give his inputs on certain tasks and can pass required information to the team. This helps in better communication among the team and team managers which ultimately results in effective working and team bonding. It ensures that each and every person involved in the project has the same knowledge, same kind of understanding and has the access to the same information. This helps in shaking off the misunderstandings and promoting mutual understanding.

Effective Time Management:

Majority of the managers regard scheduling as one of the biggest benefits of Gantt charts in Project Management. Since time plays a vital role in the life of a project, Gantt chart software helps to save time, automates the process to support more advanced Gantt requirements like building task interdependences, adding milestones or analyzing the critical path of a project. It helps to understand the criticality of time delays while managing projects. Its very easy to get involved in work senselessly but when you have a collective and consolidated view of the overall progress, one can easily designate the correct amount of time to each and every task.

Avoid Overloading of the Resources:

Many complications arise when resources are spread over too many tasks and processes. Gantt chart helps to use the resources effectively because you can easily see as to which resource is utilized where and the start and end time of each resource. Proper delegation and alignment of tasks lessens the burden on the resources.

Tags: excel, Gantt Chart, microsoft, office

About the Author

Bibhuranjan Editorial Officer, technofaq.org I'm an avid tech enthusiast at heart. I like to mug up on new and exciting developments on science and tech and have a deep love for PC gaming. Other hobbies include writing blog posts, music and DIY projects.