Gantt Chart

Use the Gantt Chart to establish a graphical timeline for project activities and to show the relationship between the tasks and the milestones. A Gantt Chart shows the relationships between the tasks, the expected start and completion dates, task progress, and milestones.

The Gantt Chart answers the following questions.

What are the critical activities?
Is there an optimal order to complete these activities?
What are the estimated and actual durations of the activities?
What is the status of the project?

How-to

Identify and list each task sequentially.
For each task, establish an estimated start date and due date.
Enter any milestones, such as a planned design review or a demo.
As the project progresses, enter the percent complete as a number (25) or as a percentage (25%).
As the project progresses, enter any newly identified milestones.
Enter footnotes to add information for any specific task.

For more information, go to Add and complete a form.

Additional guidelines

Size the tasks appropriate to your intent. For example, if you want to maintain general oversight of an entire project, you might have 12 tasks (one for each of the 12 steps used in the 12-step project template). If you are managing a time-critical process, you can break down the tasks into more defined steps such as create design, review design, draft, proof blueprints, make prototype, and so on.

In some cases, when you plan your entire project at the beginning, you may find the original chart does not reflect the current state. In these cases, you should modify the chart with appropriate notation that explains the reason for the change.