Gantt Chart

A bar chart that is used to visualise the stages and the timeline of a project or work schedule.

The chart will identify activities that are needed to be completed, which are listed to the left-hand side of the chart, and each activity has a bar related to it that shows its start and finish (i.e. deadline) times, which is located to the right of the activities.

With all activities included a manager is better able to plan for when certain staff, materials or equipment may be needed to complete the schedule and to make efficient use of available resources, rather than having resources all available at the start of a project, which would typically be a waste of valuable resources, especially if they are sitting around for long periods of time before being required.

Where a Gantt chart is used to also monitor and show the progress made for an activity then the amount of activity completed can be shown as lightly shaded whilst for the planned work still to be completed the colour of the remaining bar might be a different shade of the same colour. If the activity is completed early, then a vertical bar can be added to the coloured bar to indicate work completion. This is a quick visual way of showing if activities are taking longer or shorter than planned.

An indication within the chart can also be given of the actual work activity time, in contrast to the full duration of the activity. For example, watering a pitch with a self-travelling sprinkler might be set as taking a full day of 8-hours, yet the actual work time involved in setting it up, checking progress and storing away might only be 2-hours. So, some thought will need to be given to distinguishing between work time and work duration.