Gantt Chart:

It is a technique utilized to describe the progression of a project in the form of specialized chart. Primarily Gantt chart was built to track the application of ship-building projects.

Role of Gantt chart in Project Planning

For larger projects, a work breakdown structure would be developed to recognize the tasks before constructing a Gantt chart. For smaller projects, the Gantt chart itself can be used to identify the tasks. The strength of the Gantt chart is its capability to display the status of each of the activity at a glance. While frequently generated using project management software, it is simple to construct by using a spreadsheet, and frequently appears in simple ASCII formatting in e-mails among managers. For critical and sequencing path analysis, network models such like CPM or PERT are more powerful for dealing with dependencies and project completion time. Even while network models are utilized, the Gantt chart often is used as a reporting tool.

Gantt charts are named after Henry Gantt, who developed these charts in the early year of 1900s. A Gantt chart is a visual representation of schedule overtime. Two types of Gantt charts are load chart and the progress chart.

Load Chart

The load chart illustrated the planned work load and idle times for a group of machines or individual employees, or for a department.

Progress Chart

The progress chart monitors job progress by illustrating the relationship between planned performance and real performance.