The Gantt Chart

This article will introduce the Gantt Chart how to use it in practise and how it can be combined with other tools or methods to improve its capabilities. The Gantt Chart was the first time created by a Polish engineer named Karol Adamiecki (born March 18th 1866) but was later also created independantly by an american engineer called Henry Gantt (born in 1861). It is a tool that is very commonly used in project management as it is great for displaying different activities against time. Depending on how much information you put into the Gantt Chart the Gantt Chart can become increasingly complex to use. Because of todays technology it has become much easier to create a Gantt Chart and get an overview of the interdependencies of the different activities within a project as many different computer programs can help to create a Gantt Chart fast and easy.

It can however be very confusing to create a Gantt Chart by using different computer programs as there are a lot of different informations that can be put into a Gantt Chart. So choosing the right program compared to how detailed you want it to be can be a hard choice.

History of the Gantt Chart

The first version of the Gantt Chartt was created in the mid 1890's by the Polish engineer named Karol Adamiecki who was born on March 18th 1866. The world known version that we know today was developed approximately 15 years later than the first version, by an American engineer and consultant called Henry Gantt. This version of the Gantt Chart became very polular which is why it is known today as the Gantt Chart. In the beginning the Gantt Chart was made by hand which caused a lot of re-work when a change in the current planning happened. Today we have the technology advantage of computers and a lot of different project managing software to help create a Gantt Chart which can be updated a lot easier than back in the days where it had to be done with a pen.

Basic understanding of the Gantt Chart

The Gantt Chart is a type of bar chart where the bars are represented in relation to a x-axis and a y-axis. The x-axis represents the time which can be hours, days, weeks, months etc. depending on the timespan of the project. The y-axis represents the number of different activities or tasks that has to be performed in the project. The bars in the chart each represents an activity and the length of the bar is dependent on the amount of time estimated for that specific activity. The Gantt Chart os used to

Tools for creating Gantt Charts

Free to use (for DTU students)

Microsoft Visio - One of the easier tools to use if you need a simple Gantt Chart, which should be available from Microsoft Dreamspark (https://www.dreamspark.com/) for students at DTU.