Gantt chart

A Gantt chart [ gænt ] or Gantt chart is a management consultant after Henry L. Gantt (1861-1919) called instrument of project management, which is the temporal sequence of activities graphically in the form of bars on a timeline.

Design and Structure

In the Gantt chart the activities of a project are listed in the first column of a table. In the first row of the table, the time axis is shown. The individual activities are then visualized in the rows with a horizontal bar. The longer the bar, the longer the activity. Overlapping activities are represented by overlapping beams. The visualization of the critical path is possible. Attempts are often made with arrows to illustrate dependencies between activities. With a large number of activities the representation is then quickly become confusing. Therefore, the Gantt chart is more suitable for projects with low to moderate number of activities.

A challenge lies in choosing the right level of detail. An insufficient number of activities or just the representation of sub-projects does not allow adequate control of activities. Each activity record, weakens the explanatory power. The summary of activities to project phases makes the Gantt chart considerably clearer.

Pros and Cons

In comparison to the network offers a Gantt chart some advantages. Thus, the duration of the activities by the beam length is shown visibly and it can be recognized in the course of an activity end-start relationships well.

A disadvantage of the Gantt chart, that with him in contrast to the network dependencies between activities can only be represented with respect to time.

Other applications

In the production economy Gantt charts can be used as an instrument of production planning and control, and referred to as machines occupancy or order diagram.

The difference of the assignment plan is technically that is not assigned as the phases of project planning, the resources, but the resources, the tasks are assigned ( the scarce resources therefore affect the scheduling of ). Machine allocation plans contain machinery in the first column, so that occupancy and downtimes of resources and waiting times of the tasks can be read. The overview of the order progress, however, can be easily lost here. When you order ( sequence) diagram are the jobs in the first column, so that job progress and lead times can be read. Both types of representation are different views of the same planning problem.

Software

For the creation of Gantt charts numerous programs are available. Below is a selection of application programs is listed that may pose Gantt charts:

Free Software:

Paid license:

Henry Gantt ProjectLibre Merlin (Software) Mindjet (software) PLANTA Project
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