- In this video, I want to answer the question, what is a Gantt chart?

[MUSIC PLAYING]

The Gantt chart is arguably the most widely used project planning tool. In fact, it is so widely used that, for some people, it's almost the archetype of what a project is all about. The Gantt chart is, if you like, the icon for project management.

The Gantt chart was invented by Karol Adamiecki. Karol Adamiecki invented his harmonograph 5 to 10 years before Henry Gantt went into print describing what is now known as the Gantt chart. And there is absolutely no evidence that I am aware of saying whether Gantt was either aware or not aware of Adamiecki's work.

But it does emphasize something important, which is that if you want something named after you, the best thing to do is to write about it in English because that way, Americans and British people understand what you're writing about. If you write about it in Russian, as Adamiecki did, then it might not get noticed and picked up. That's just the way the world worked in the early 20th century.

Anyway, Henry Gantt gives us the rules that we use for creating a Gantt chart. A Gantt chart plots time along the horizontal axis. And on the vertical axis, we list all the tasks that need to be done to accomplish our project. And if you've created a work breakdown structure, then that immediately gives you your task list. And if you don't know what a work breakdown structure is, take a look at our video, "What Is A Work Breakdown Structure?"

Now, once you've created your graph-- and here's something important about the way Gantt charts work-- equal units of distance along the horizontal axis represent equal units of time. Once you've created that, then you represent each activity by a bar. And the length of the bar represents the duration of the task. And the positioning of the bar represents the scheduling of the task.

So if one task follows another, then the bar follows the previous bar. And so what we often see on our Gantt charts are these long diagonals of one activity following another in time because each task is dependent upon the completion of the predecessor task to get started. But then, we might have other workstreams that run in parallel.

The other commonly used symbol that you see on a Gantt chart is a simple geometrical shape, like a triangle or a diamond, that represents a milestone. And we have a video on what a milestone is, as well. So that's your basic Gantt chart. And it's very easy to read. And we can put a vertical line through the Gantt chart to indicate today, so that at any point in time during our project, we can read off where we should be in our project and then assess the level of completeness.

Now, of course, when you look at real Gantt charts produced by sophisticated software, there are often different sorts of bars with different shading. There are sometimes different types of milestones, different shaped symbols. A milestone could be a decision point, or a completion, or a gateway review, for example.

So how do you read these complicated Gantt charts? Well, my answer is, it's simple. If you don't know what the symbols mean, that's not your fault. It's the fault of the person who created the Gantt chart. So when you create your Gantt charts, always be clear and put a key on the Gantt chart explaining what the different symbols and shadings and types of line mean, and that way your reader will be able to understand it very simply.

So a Gantt chart, sometimes called a bar chart, represents your project plan by making each task into a bar and putting those bars onto a time schedule. Your Gantt chart is a powerful tool to help you think through your plan, to articulate it, to communicate it, and to monitor it during delivery.

If you've enjoyed this video, please do give us a like. And if you want more, subscribe. And why not hit the notification bell, as well, to get notified of future videos from OnlinePMCourses. Thank you.