How To Make A Gantt Chart

8/18/23, 7:37 PM How to Make a Gantt Chart | Step-by-Step Guide for Beginners
Home › Blog › How To Make A Gantt Chart (Step-By-Step Guide For Beginners)
How to Make a Gantt Chart (Step-

by-Step Guide for Beginners)
Last modified: August 18, 2023
Whether you’re an expert or a novice in project management, you’ve probably

heard of Gantt Charts before.
Nothing can beat the good old Gantt charts for providing a better overview and
clear understanding of the project schedule.
When it comes to keeping track of projects and tasks, visual representations

work well, and that’s what Gantt Charts help you do. They aid in the visualization
of projects, tasks, and milestones, allowing you to plan projects more effectively
and execute them faster.
Although a Gantt chart software helps you visualize projects from start to finish,
one wrong move can turn them into a mess. That’s why it is important to take
every step carefully.
If you are curious about how to create a Gantt chart? You’ve come to the right
place.
In this article, we’ll explain how to make a Gantt chart in Excel. Also, we’ll
highlight an effective, alternative tool to create better Gantt charts. Since Gantt
charts aren’t a piece of cake, let’s first dive into the basics.
Let’s get started.
https://www.proprofsproject.com/blog/how-to-make-gantt-chart/ 1/16
What is a Gantt Chart?

A Gantt chart is a popular project management tool that aids in planning and
scheduling projects of all sizes. It provides a visual representation of the
project’s timeline and assists project managers, stakeholders, and team
members in understanding:
A project’s roadmap
Task progress
Key milestones
Work dependencies
Resources required
Risks involved, and much more
A Gantt chart, like most charts, has two axes. The horizontal axis represents the
timeline for all project tasks. On the other hand, the vertical axis lists the
activities or tasks that must be completed to finish the project.
In a nutshell, a Gantt chart is a quick and easy approach to describe how long it
will take to complete a project on time and within budget. It keeps your project
team as well as stakeholders on the same page from the start.
Read More: What is a Gantt Chart & How to Use Gantt Charts for Project Plann
How to Make a Gantt Chart

Creating Gantt charts in Excel is one of the most common ways to represent
your project plan visually. A Microsoft Excel spreadsheet is an indispensable
business tool. Let’s see how you can use it to create an amazing Gantt Chart for
your projects.
Follow the five steps given below to build the Excel Gantt chart from scratch.
Step 1: Create a table with the project’s data.

Open a new Excel Spreadsheet and make a table that contains your project’s
primary information like:
List of Tasks along with their descriptions
Start Date for each task
End Date for each task

Duration of each task
Here’s a sample spreadsheet for a Mobile App Development Project.
Source: proprofsproject.com
Step 2: Add a Stacked Bar Chart

Since Excel does not have an inbuilt Gantt chart, we’ll create one using a stacked
bar chart.
To do that, follow these steps:
Stay on the same sheet and click on any empty cell
Click on the Insert Tab
Select Bar Chart Option
Choose Stacked Bar Chart.
Read More: Advantages and Disadvantages of Gantt Chart
Step 3: Add Duration Data to the Bar Chart
Next, we’ll add task data to the chart. For this, right-click on the chart and choose
the Select Data option.
The Select Data Source window will appear, where you will see two options:
Legend Entries(Series): here, we’ll add the start task date and duration
Horizontal Axis Labels that will display task names.
To add the task start dates and durations, click the Add button in the Legend
Entries (Series) section.
Task start date:
Select the Series Name option and choose the Start date cell
Set the Series values to the cell range containing the start dates for the tasks.
Task durations:
Select the Series Name option and choose the Duration cell
Set the Series values to the cell range containing the task durations.
Next, select the Edit option under the Horizontal (Category) axis labels to add
task names to the vertical axis.
Step 4: Format the Chart

The stacked bar is now ready. Your tasks are laid out on the chart as blue and
orange bars. But, it doesn’t look like a Gantt chart. Let’s format the stacked bar to
make it look like a Gantt Chart.
Right-click on the blue part of the bar. Then click on the Format Data Series
option to open the Formatting dialog box.
Next, set the Fill option to No fill.
You’ll notice how it looks like a Gantt Chart now.
However, something is still not quite right.
You must reverse the order of your project tasks, bringing ‘Information Gathering’
to the top and ‘Release New Version’ to the bottom.
To resolve the first problem, right-click on the vertical axis.
Then, select the Format Axis tab from the context menu to open the Format Axis
dialogue box.
Then,
Click Axis Options.
Choose Categories in reverse order option.
The tasks should now be displayed in the correct order.
Your Gantt Chart is now complete.
You can customize your Gantt chart to your liking. Simply right-click on the Gantt
bars and choose Format Data Series to access a plethora of options.
Gantt chart in Excel is suitable for small projects with a limited number of tasks.
If you are working on a big project with multiple tasks, it becomes tedious and
time-consuming to follow all these steps again to add a new task or change its
duration. Even task dependencies are hard to represent within the Excel chart.
Also, Project members cannot work simultaneously to populate tasks in the

sheet.
But guess what? We have a way out!
By using a simple and robust Gantt chart software like ProProfs Project, you can
easily create a Gantt Chart in just a few minutes! But before we come to that,
let’s discuss in detail what things you need to make a Gantt chart and how to use
one.
What do you need to create a

Gantt chart?
You can’t create a Gantt chart without knowing its essential elements. Here are
some of the top elements that are critical to create a Gantt Chart.
Tasks: In a Gantt Chart, project tasks and task descriptions are placed along
the vertical axis.
Timeline: A dateline that runs across the chart’s horizontal axis and is broken
down into days, weeks, and months.
Bars: On the Gantt chart, each bar represents a task. Thanks to the timeline,
you can visualize each task with its start date, end date, and duration.
Milestones: They represent important dates, events, or goals in the project

schedule, achieving which mark significant progress in a project.
Resources: For each task, one or more team members may be assigned to
complete it.
Read More: 14 Best Product Roadmap Software to Streamline Project Manage
What to consider when making a

Gantt chart?
When you know all the elements discussed above, it’s essential to answer a few
simple questions before creating a Gantt Chart. These questions can assist you
in gathering all of the necessary information to create a project plan before
finally sitting down to make your chart.
What are the most crucial project outcomes?

How will we meet those goals and meet the deadline?
What are the milestones?

Are there any dependencies between the various tasks that could affect the
deadline?
What is the composition of the project team, and what role will they play in the
deliverables?
Gantt chart example

This is a simple example of a Gantt chart created using ProProfs Project. As
you can see, the Sample Project has four tasks (Task A, B, C, and D), and each
task is depicted on the chart by blue horizontal bars.
These bars clearly show the start and end date for each task. And the total span
of the project is depicted by an orange bar. The percentage on the bar represents
how much the task is completed. For instance, in the image above, you can see
that Task B is 90% completed. Once Task B is completed, Task A will start as it is
dependent on Task B. These are basically task dependencies that tell you the
sequence you should follow while taking up tasks in a project to ensure
successful delivery.
Read More: What is Task Management & How Does a Software Help
How To Use Gantt Charts

Let’s look at some simple ways to use a Gantt chart to manage and track your
projects.
A. Team Collaboration
Collaboration and communication are imperative for the success of any project.
When project files and updates are dispersed across multiple email threads and
platforms, it isn’t easy to get a good sense of what needs to be done and how
close you are to completion. With a Gantt Chart, you can streamline
communication by bringing all tasks and activities to a single place and allowing
teams to work in sync using features like comments and feedback.
B. Team Workload Management

When your team is overburdened and overwhelmed, completing any project on
time and within budget is challenging. A Gantt chart visualizes everyone’s work
on a timeline, allowing you to see how tasks stack up across your projects. You
can check and adjust workloads directly from your Gantt chart to avoid
overbooking your team as you schedule new tasks.
C. Reporting Tool
The chart is famous among project managers because it is an excellent
reporting tool that clearly outlines completed tasks, tasks in progress, delays,
and tasks that need to be completed. It provides a 360° view of all your project
activities, team workload, progress made on a task, and much more in a visual
and engaging way. This makes it easy for teams to make context-driven
decisions at every stage of the project.
D. Outlines the interdependence of project tasks

The Gantt chart allows you to see how the project tasks are interconnected. The
connection makes it simple to switch tasks without disrupting the project’s
progress. The Gantt Chart’s dependencies feature makes it simple to keep tasks
connected even when the timeline changes.
E. Track project status

Another important area where Gantt Charts play a crucial role in tracking project
status. Clients, bosses, and other project stakeholders, after all, expect you to
keep your promises regarding budgets and deadlines so maintaining the
transparency of a project’s status is essential.
With Gantt Charts, you can monitor tasks to ensure that you are on track to finish
work on time and within budget. If things start to go off the rails, you can make
adjustments in the Gantt chart to get things back on track.
Create Gantt Charts Effortlessly

With ProProfs Project
Most people understand how to make charts in Microsoft Excel. As a result, it’s a
natural choice when it comes to creating a Gantt chart.
However, as you can see, creating a Gantt chart in Excel is a difficult task.
Collaboration with stakeholders and team members is also nearly impossible.
Furthermore, it isn’t easy to keep the Excel sheet up to date all the time.
That’s where Proprofs can help. So, how can you add the Gantt chart view in the
Proprofs Project?
Access a project on your ProProfs Project dashboard by clicking on it.
You are currently in the Classic View. To switch to the Gantt Chart view, click
View and then Gantt Chart.
You will get a view as shown in the image below.
On the left, the project name (Testing) and its tasks/subtasks are shown
vertically. Each of these activities is represented by a progress bar. The orange
bar at the top represents the entire project, while multiple blue bars represent all
of the tasks and subtasks. The progress bars provide a start and finish date and
the duration of a project, task, and subtask.
Voila, you are done!
With a robust Gantt chart tool like Proprofs, you can:
Visualize a project’s tasks and subtasks.
Schedule and track the progress of a project.
View each activity shown by its respective progress bar, with a start date and
end date
Increase or decrease an activity’s duration by stretching a progress bar
Easily add and manage task dependencies.
Add and delete tasks and subtasks
Determine the start and finish dates of an entire project.
Assign tasks to members of your team and monitor their progress as they
complete work.
ProProfs Project is the ideal project management software that enables you to
build Gantt charts even when you are not an expert. You can even add/remove
tasks and subtasks, rename a project, tasks, and subtasks, stretch and move
progress bars, and much more with this Gantt Chart tool.
Do you want a free Project

Management Software?
We have the #1 Online Project Management Software for effective project
management.
Yes, show me Get a Demo
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
David Miller
David is a Project Management expert. He has been published in

elearningindustry.com, simpleprogrammer.com. As a project planning and
execution expert at ProProfs, he has offered a unique outlook on improving
workflows and team efficiency. Connect with David for more engaging
conversations on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.
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8/18/23, 7:37 PM How to Make a Gantt Chart | Step-by-Step Guide for Beginners

How to Make a Gantt Chart (Step-

Whether you’re an expert or a novice in project management, you’ve probably

When it comes to keeping track of projects and tasks, visual representations

Let’s get started.

What is a Gantt Chart?

Step 1: Create a table with the project’s data.

List of Tasks along with their descriptions

Start Date for each task

End Date for each task

Duration of each task

Here’s a sample spreadsheet for a Mobile App Development Project.

Step 2: Add a Stacked Bar Chart

To do that, follow these steps:

Stay on the same sheet and click on any empty cell

Click on the Insert Tab

Select Bar Chart Option

Choose Stacked Bar Chart.

Read More: Advantages and Disadvantages of Gantt Chart

Step 3: Add Duration Data to the Bar Chart

Horizontal Axis Labels that will display task names.

Task start date:

Step 4: Format the Chart

Next, set the Fill option to No fill.

You’ll notice how it looks like a Gantt Chart now.

However, something is still not quite right.

To resolve the first problem, right-click on the vertical axis.

Click Axis Options.

Choose Categories in reverse order option.

The tasks should now be displayed in the correct order.

Your Gantt Chart is now complete.

Also, Project members cannot work simultaneously to populate tasks in the

But guess what? We have a way out!

What do you need to create a

Milestones: They represent important dates, events, or goals in the project

Read More: 14 Best Product Roadmap Software to Streamline Project Manage

What to consider when making a

What are the most crucial project outcomes?

What are the milestones?

Gantt chart example

How To Use Gantt Charts

B. Team Workload Management

D. Outlines the interdependence of project tasks

E. Track project status

Create Gantt Charts Effortlessly

Access a project on your ProProfs Project dashboard by clicking on it.

You will get a view as shown in the image below.

Voila, you are done!

With a robust Gantt chart tool like Proprofs, you can:

Visualize a project’s tasks and subtasks.

Schedule and track the progress of a project.

Increase or decrease an activity’s duration by stretching a progress bar

Easily add and manage task dependencies.

Add and delete tasks and subtasks

Determine the start and finish dates of an entire project.

Do you want a free Project

Yes, show me Get a Demo

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David is a Project Management expert. He has been published in

11 Best Product Management

8 Best Gantt Chart Alternatives to

POPULAR POSTS IN THIS CATEGORY