Gantt Chart
DE: Gantt-Diagramm
A bar chart showing project activities plotted against time.
Detailed Explanation
A Gantt chart is a bar chart that provides a visual schedule showing when activities start and finish, their durations, and their dependencies. Named after Henry Gantt who popularized the tool in the 1910s, it remains the most widely used project scheduling tool.
Modern Gantt charts show task bars on a timeline, dependency arrows between tasks, milestones as diamond shapes, the critical path highlighted, resource assignments, and percent complete for each task. Tools like Microsoft Project, Jira, and Monday.com generate them automatically.
The Gantt chart's strength is its visual clarity — stakeholders can quickly grasp the project timeline, see what is happening now, and understand dependencies. Its limitation is that large, complex projects can make Gantt charts unwieldy without proper filtering and summarization.
Key Points
- Most widely used scheduling tool in project management
- Shows task bars on a timeline with dependencies
- Displays milestones, critical path, and percent complete
- Easy to understand for non-technical stakeholders
- Generated by tools like MS Project, Jira, Monday.com
- Can become unwieldy for very large projects
Practical Example
A product launch PM creates a Gantt chart in MS Project. It shows 45 tasks across 6 months. The critical path is highlighted in red. The steering committee can instantly see that manufacturing (weeks 8-16) is the longest phase and that marketing preparation runs in parallel. The chart is updated weekly and shared as a PDF in status reports.
Tips for Learning and Applying
Use summary tasks to keep the chart readable for executives
Highlight the critical path for instant schedule risk visibility
Update percent complete weekly for accurate progress tracking
Use the Gantt chart as a communication tool, not just a planning artifact
Related Terms
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