Explain it Like I'm 5: Gantt Charts in Project Management

Gantt Chart

The History of Gantt Charts

How to Read a Gantt Chart

Figure 1

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• Each bar represents an activity within the project.
• The red bars display the critical path
• The blue bars display noncritical path items
• The diamonds mark a milestone
• The black solid lines show available slack
• The arrows show dependencies between activities.

Figure 2: 

Why Use a Gantt Chart

• Understand the most important schedule information in a glance
• Quickly see dependencies, milestones, and activity durations
• Determine current progress and remaining activities
• See which activities are on the critical path
• Draw attention to future activities that may not be on the radar yet

When Not to Use a Gantt Chart

How to Create a Gantt Chart

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1. Create and organize your activities using the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) to show related activities.
2. Set durations and dates for each activity. Remember that milestones have a duration of zero.
3. Add dependencies between activities. Dependencies occur when a task can only start when another task finishes (FS dependency), a task must finish at the same time another task finishes (FF dependency), a task must start at the same time another task starts (SS dependency), or a task cannot finish until another starts (SF dependency).
4. Some project programs may want to move activities if dependencies conflict one another. The decision to accept these changes is up to the project manager and depends on the specific project.
5. Select the Gantt Chart view to see the chart.

Iterations on the Gantt Chart

• Latest Possible Start (LS)
• Latest Possible Finish (LF)
• Earliest Possible Start (ES)
• Earliest Possible Finish (EF)
• Slack associated with the activity

Figure 3. 

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More Resources

www.gantt.com

PMI Search on Gantt Charts