Speaker: In this video, I want to answer the question 'what is a Gantt chart?'
[intense music]
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 5-10 years before
Henry Gantt went into print, describing what is now known as the Gannt chart.
And there is absolutely no evidence that I am aware of, saying whether Gannt 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, Henrey Gantt gives us the rules that we use for creating our 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 break down structure, then that immediately gives
you your task list.
And if you don't know what a work break down 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 on the completion of the predecessor task
to get started.
But then, we might have other work streams that run in parallel.
The other commonly used symbol 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 though 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, they are often different sorts of bars with different sorts of 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 shading, 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.
[intense music]
If you enjoyed this video, please do gives 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 PM courses, thank you.