GANTT CHART

INTRODUCTION:
During the era of scientific management, a Gantt chart is a horizontal bar chart
developed as a production control tool in 1917 by Henry L. Gantt, an American
engineer & social scientist
A Gantt chart provides a graphical illustration of a schedule that helps to plan,
coordinate & track specific tasks in a project.
The horizontal axis of the Gantt chart is a time scale, expressed either in
absolute time or in relative time referenced to the beginning of the project. The
resolution depends on the project.
DEFINITION:
A chart in which a series of horizontal lines shows the amount of work done in
certain periods of time in relation to the amount planned for those periods.
NEED:
 Avoid Completion Confusion
 Keep Everyone on the Same Page
 Understand Task Relationships
 Effectively Allocate Resources
 Get a Handle on the Future.
Avoid Completion Confusion:
Gantt charts were created to keep users on track, providing a visual timeline for
starting and finishing specific tasks. By providing a visual overview of
milestones and other key dates.
Keep Everyone on the Same Page:
Where there is a visual framework for the work to be done, there are fewer
chances for misunderstanding, especially when it comes to highly complex
tasks.
Understand Task Relationships:
These charts can make clear how various tasks are interrelated and perhaps
rely on the completion of another to meet specific objectives. A Gantt charts
makes it very easy to visualize related tasks.
Effectively Allocate Resources:
The more closely the chart is followed, the better chance there is of keeping
project costs within budget while also better assuring on-time completion.
Get a Handle on the Future:
Gantt chart advantages include helping decision-makers look farther ahead to
ensure each given project is working toward the achievement the organization’s
long-term strategic objectives.
PROCESS:
1. Identify the Purpose
2. Define the Project Timeline
3. Break the Project Down into Manageable Pieces
4. Create Progress Bars
5. Define the Critical Path
6. Add Milestone Markers.
1. Identify the Purpose
It is helpful to first decide whether this is a project or a process, because
diagramming a process might work better with a flow chart.
2. Define the Project Timeline
Decide how to divide the increments of time for the duration of the project.
Each one should have a start date, end date.
3. Break the Project Down into Manageable Pieces
Divide the project into major components, then tasks and subtasks. Continue
breaking them down until they are each straight forward tasks. They should be
of short enough duration that timeframes can be accurately estimated.
4. Create Progress Bars
The next step is to create a progress bar for each task. A progress bar is
simply a horizontal bar that should be in line with the task name it represents
and should begin beneath. Its start date and end beneath its end date.
5. Define the Critical Path
What is a critical path? It is a method of looking at all of the activities in the
Gantt chart, considering the timing and dependent relationships of each, and
calculating the longest path from start to completion of the project.
6. Add Milestone Markers
Choose a symbol to represent milestones, that is, major events that either have
a large part in the process or must be completed before progress can continue.
Place them on the chart beneath the date or time when they occur.
MODEL OF GANTT CHART:
ADVANTAGES:
 It helps in planning and monitoring the work of project
 Time is explicitly expressed in the chart
 All tasks are visibly at a glance in relation to other.
 Deadlines are depicted in the chart.
LIMITATION:
Gantt charts, because of their success, form the most easy to use and the most
widely used scheduling tools. But these charts are also accompanied with some
limitation. In such charts, it is very necessary to keep on updating charts, in
order to keep it in current form. The charts are not able to directly reveal the
costs of the alternate loadings. These charts also do not consider the varying
processing times among work centers.
Other limitations include the inability to include certain constraints like time,
scope, and costs.

Features of the Gantt chart

 Supports both date & time display.
 Multiple and irregular division of dates on the visual timeline. The
categories can be customized for labels and cosmetic properties.
 Customizable input and output date format. This allows you to provide
dates in JSON the data in one format and then customize the output format.
Additionally, the output format supports extensive customization of date
format.
 Ability to show each task’s completion in percentage as either empty bar or
using a different fill color (slack fill color).
 Ability to show a scrollable data table at the side of Gantt chart. This data
table can have any number of columns containing any data that you wish to
show. You can customize the cosmetics of each cell of this table.
 Ability to restrict the Gantt view pane area to a specified date/time
duration. The rest can be viewed upon scrolling of the chart.
 Tasks are linked to processes by an ID. Therefore, multiple tasks can be
defined for each process. This helps in cases where you are plotting a Gantt
chart indicating allotted work for all team members and each member has
multiple jobs allotted during the same period.
 Option to show/hide task labels, percent labels, individual task bar dates,
etc.
 Ability to show individual task bars as groups – to indicate task groups.
 Customizable connectors to connect any two tasks on the chart. The
connectors can be connected to either start or end of both the tasks and can
be rendered in four different ways. The cosmetics of each connector can be
individually customized.
 Ability to display milestones at specified dates. Milestones can be
displayed as polygons or stars with customizable properties. You can show
additional tool text for milestones.
 Trend-lines or trend-zones can be added to the chart to highlight a single
date or a range of dates. For example, a trend line can be added to show
“Today”, or trend-zones can be added to show a “Holiday”, etc.
 Customizable tooltip properties. Also, you can opt to show task date as part
of the tool-tip text. Additional macros are supported to create a dynamic
tool-tip.
 Ability to add a legend to the chart to show color keys. Fully customizable
legend cosmetics.
 Pre-defined palettes and single color theme selectors to help you easily set
colors for the chart.
 Ability to define the width ratio in which the data table and Gantt area is to
be distributed.
 Fully customizable Gantt & grid cosmetics. Various other cosmetics can be
customized like scroll properties etc.
 Round-edged task bars supported.
 Customizable gradient mix and shadow effect for task bars.
 Ability to define annotations over the Gantt chart to show further
information.
 Ability to enable the hovering effect. Customizable hovering properties for
categories, processes, connectors, and task bars are available.
 Ability to support vertical scrolling.

 A Gantt chart shows all the activities of a project and their duration as a
bar chart, with the timescale at the top or bottom. The activities are
placed on the bar chart in sequence, starting in the top left-hand corner,
and following their precedence rules. The column named Predecessors
indicates the immediate predecessors of each activity. The activity bars
can be connected to earlier and later activities with arrows, to show their
dependency on each other. A Gantt chart is often the tool a project
manager uses to make a rough estimate of the time that it will take to
complete the activities and the whole project. Sometimes it is useful to
start by working back from the target deadline for completion of the
whole project. In this way, it soon becomes apparent if the timescale is
too short or unnecessarily long.
 As well as showing activities, you can use a Gantt chart to indicate
milestones and deliverables at key points on the chart. This practice is
quite common and shows how activities lead to the creation of
deliverables and the achievement of milestones. In many cases, the
possibility of representing deliverables and milestones depends on the
tool used to create the Gantt diagram.
THEORY APPLICATION:

GENERAL SYSTEM THEORY

INPUT THROUGHPUT OUTPUT

Students having Students having

inadequate knowledge adequate knowledge
Class room teaching
regarding Gantt Chart regarding Gantt chart
Theory content. theory content.

JOURNAL REFERENCE:
Abstract:
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to explore a classic tool in project
management, which for some has become almost synonymous with
project management: the Gantt chart. The Gantt chart was developed
in the early twentieth century, at the heart of Scientific Management;
yet, the chart is used with very little adaptation across a wide range of
types of projects. In this conceptual paper, the authors question its
universal and unreflective use.
Design/methodology/approach
– The authors analyse the conceptual roots of the Gantt chart, its
historical development and use, derive its engrained principles, and
analyse its implications to the management of projects.
Findings
– While a Gantt chart can be useful to cope with some of the
“complicatedness” of projects, and embraces the importance of time
and timing, it is based on principles that are not valid to all projects.
The consequence is a propagation of a management approach that
does not explicitly cope with complexity, ambiguity, uncertainty and
change. In that respect, the Gantt chart fails to acknowledge insights
from years of organization theory research and project management
research with a firm grounding in contingency theory.
Originality/value
– While the majority of contemporary project management thinking
already accepted that a normative use can be inappropriate, the
practice is still pretty much embracing this approach. By showing the
conceptual roots of the Gantt chart, the authors hope to make some of
its limitations more evident to practitioners and academics, and
encourage its use to be more reflective and contextualised.