How To Make a Gantt Chart: A Beginner's Guide

How convenient would it be if all your work could be marked systematically on a line, showing the progress in your process? Karol Adamiecki and Henry Gantt would agree. You're probably wondering who they are, don't worry you can read more about them in this blog. Getting back to Gantt Charts, they help you track the progress of you and your team's work on a simple saleable horizontal line.  

How to Make a Gantt Chart? You may ask, well, it's simple, and this blog intends to show you how to make a Gantt Chart in the simplest way possible. Are you ready? Let's dive right in! 

Table of Contents

1) What is a Gantt Chart?  

2) The history of Gantt Charts 

3) Who utilises Gantt charts?  

4) Key components of a Gantt chart  

5) How to Make a Gantt Chart  

6) Conclusion 

What is a Gantt Chart? 

A Gantt chart is an indispensable project management tool that helps provide a visual representation of the project schedule and progress, showing tasks, their durations, start and end dates, and the assignees of these tasks. It helps project managers or stakeholders to better chart the task dependencies, identify responsible parties for each task, and track important meetings and deadlines along with the whole project schedule.  

By simplifying the complexity of project planning and execution, Gantt charts enable clear communication and coordination among team members so that the projects are delivered on schedule and within budget. This is particularly useful when creating Gantt Chart for multiple projects in Excel, as it streamlines the management of multiple tasks.

The history of Gantt Charts 

Since its inception, Gantt charts has made tremendous progress. In 1896, a Polish engineer named Karol Adamiecki developed the harmonogram, which is the predecessor of the Gantt chart. Nevertheless, it was not widely recognised outside his homeland of Poland. 

Some twenty odd years afterwards, Henry Gantt, an American engineer, and management consultant, devised his own version of the chart whose aim was to measure the productivity of factory workers. The two systems, Gantt’s new chart and the harmonogram, finally merged to become the Gantt chart of today. 

First Gantt charts would be handmade on paper with every single update traced by hand. Nevertheless, with the advent of digital tools, now you can make a Gantt chart much quicker and more easily with the help of online project management software apps. 

Who utilises Gantt Charts? 

Gantt Charts are a helpful tool for project managers, entrepreneurs, team leaders, and executives across all the industries and major divisions (HR, Marketing, etc.) Here are just a few areas that may utilise Gantt Charts as a tool to plan, schedule, and execute their projects: 

1) Marketing agencies 

2) Event planners 

3) Human resources  

4) Manufacturing units  

5) Software development organisations 

6) Consultancies  

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Key components of a Gantt Chart

Gantt chart consists of lists of tasks on the vertical axis, a timeline on the horizontal axis and horizontal bars covering each task. These Features (diamonds, arrows, etc.) are more detail oriented. Having the basic elements at your disposal will also make it easier to learn Gantt chart reading. Here are the basic components that Gantt Charts include:
 

Task list - A vertical list of the work of the project listed to the left of the diagram. 

Progress - A column or a bar shading that would specify stage of a task completion process. 

Arrows - Lines or arrows showing prerequisites of specific tasks that should be carried out in a specified manner. 

Timeline - A horizontal timeline on the top side of the chart indicating days, weeks or months over the duration of the project lies. 

Assignees - Labels which specify the small group or the people responsible for every task 

Critical Path - A list of individual activities, which are dependent on one another in order to the meet the deadline, usually the collection of longest tasks in sequence. 

Dateline - A vertical line that signifying the current date of the project placed on the Gantt chart. 

Diamonds - The use of special symbols, which are dedicated to certain landmarks, achievements or momentous events. 

Bars - A wide band on the chart stand as markers for each task with the corresponding duration with the start and the end date. 

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How to Make a Gantt Chart 

A project management information system (PMIS) software such as Primavera Project Planner, Microsoft Project or MindView is utilised to create a Gantt chart. The typical approach would involve setting up a meeting with the required members to establish what it is the Gantt Charts purpose would be and how it will be executed. Here are the steps involved in creating a Gantt Chart in detail. 

Step 1: Assess scope baseline 

Set up a meeting to assess the approved baseline for your project and its scope of how it would pan out. The Scope Baseline, should include, the Scope Statement, the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) and a WBS Dictionary. In the meeting you will need to discuss and confirm if the Scope Baseline, addresses all aspects of the project. 

Step 2: Formulate tasks 

Once you’ve agreed on the Baseline, you can use a technique called Decomposition, to break down each WBS work packages into performable activities. The team will need to collaboratively come up with guidelines on how these tasks can be quantified and measured. Keeping in mind variables like deadlines and milestones.  

Step 3: Arrange task sequence 

Activities may be interdependent, make sure you arrange the tasks in order to maintain a smooth flow of tasks. You can do so by arranging the host tasks first followed by the dependent tasks. You can set up a set of relational programming that help manage the activities like start the dependent tasks after the host task is completed. 

Step 4: Determine resource estimates 

Discuss with the team and establish an estimate of resources that each task would require. Resources include labour, materials and the equipment required to carry out the task, and its availability. Take an account for each and everything required and an estimate of how much of it you require for the project in question. 

Step 5: Calculate duration estimates 

Once you’ve estimated the resources, you will need to establish an estimate of time, required for each task from start to finish. This will determine the duration of each task and help set the deadlines. Keep in mind to consider variables that may affect the timelines like employees on leaves or the non-working weekends.  

Step 6: Craft schedule 

Once you have gathered everything you need to put in your Grant Chart, craft your schedule onto a Gantt Chart. To do so you will need to load the details of your requirements into a Project Management Software Tool of your preference. Review it to make sure everything is properly aligned.  

And there you have it, a well-drafted Gantt Chart With Dependencies in Excel. Now you can follow this procedure whenever you need to create a Gantt Chart. Similarly, if you need to Create a Chart in Excel, you can apply these structured steps to visualise data effectively. You can be flexible with your process and personalise it over time.

Conclusion 

In this blog, we discussed what Gantt Charts are, its history, who is likely to use it and its key components that make it such an adaptable tool for Project Management. Further, we discussed the process that you should follow to incorporate Gantt Charts in your workplace. We hope this guide helped you understand How to Make a Gantt Chart. 

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