Gantt Charts as a Tool for Project Management

This article is written in connection with course 42433 Advanced Engineering Project, Program and Portfolio Management at The Technical Univeristy of Denmark in the autumn of 2015.

A project is a unique set of processes which consist of different activities and tasks to be performed before reaching the project objectivities. During a project unique and complex problems are solved under un-predictable conditions, varying collaborations and great time pressures. All of these characteristics make it incredibly difficult to manage the individual flows of the project. However there are tools that help project managers to manage the project planning and schedule to keep track of all activities that needs to be performed. The most common tool is the Gantt Chart because of its simplicity and easy application to any project.

This article aims at providing information about Gantt Charts as a planning/monitoring tool for complex projects and how to apply and benefit from them in project management but also what challenges and limitation there are to the tool.

The article is based on the course material as well as literature reviews of scientific research papers and other influential publications on the subject, Gantt Charts, within the academic fields of Advanced Engineering Project, Program and Portfolio Management.

Big idea

A Gantt chart is a useful tool that shows activities displayed against time. All activities are listed to the left of the chart and a time scale is displayed at the top of the chart. Representing each activity is a horizontal bar indicating the starting date, duration and deadline.

Figure 1: Gantt Chart concept

The tool is very commonly used in project management because it gives a clear overview of:

• What the different activities within the project are
• When each activity is initiated and when the deadline is
• How long the activity lasts
• Overlap between activities and by how much
• The start and end of the entire project

The main objective of a Gantt Chart is to estimate the duration of a project and to establish the order in which the different tasks that need to be carried out. Some tasks kan overlap each other because they don't depend on each other as shown in Figure 1.

History of Gantt Charts

The earliest Gantt Chart appeared in the 1890s. It was created by a Polish engineer by the name of Karol Adamiecki who ran a steelwork in the southern Poland. He was interested in different ideas and techniques within management. 15 years later an American engineer, Henry Gantt, came up with his own version of the chart which eventually became widely known and popular and therefore Henry Gantt was the one who laid name to the chart.

Figure 2: Karol Adamiecki (1866-1933), Source: http://projectmanagementhistory.com/The_Harmonogram.html

Figure 3: Henry Gantt, Source: http://www.manufactura.mx/industria/2011/06/17/padre-de-la-gestin

Application

The Gantt Chart is very simple to use and understand and they are used by most project managers for project planning and scheduling.

Gantt charts used to be prepared by hand and therefore the chart needed to be redrawn every time there was a change in the project which posed some limitations to the usefulness of the chart. However the invention of the computer along came project management software which makes the tool much easier to handle and update when changes occur. Today the chart is most commonly used for monitoring project schedules.

Planning, complexity, human behavior