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Speaker: In this video, I want to answer
the question 'what is a Gantt chart?'

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[intense music]

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The Gantt chart is arguably the most
widely used project planning tool.

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In fact, it is so widely used, that for 
some people, it's almost the archetype

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of what a project is all about.

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The Gantt chart is if you like the icon
for project management.

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The Gantt chart was invented by
Karol Adamiecki.

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Karol Adamiecki invented his
harmonograph 5-10 years before

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Henry Gantt went into print, describing
what is now known as the Gannt chart.

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And there is absolutely no evidence that
I am aware of, saying whether Gannt was

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either aware or not aware of
Adamiecki's work.

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But it does emphasize something important.

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Which is, that if you want something named
after you, the best thing to do is to

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write about it in english.

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Because that way, Americans and British 
people understand what you're writing about.

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If you write about it in Russian, 
as Adamiecki did,

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then it might not get noticed,
and picked up.

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That's just the way the world worked in 
the early 20th century.

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Anyway, Henrey Gantt gives us the rules
that we use for creating our Gantt chart.

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A Gantt chart plots time along the
horizontal axis.

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And on the vertical axis, we list all the
tasks that need to be done to accomplish

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our project.

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And if you've created a work break down 
structure, then that immediately gives

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you your task list.

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And if you don't know what a work break
down structure is.

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Take a look at our video, 'What is a
Work Breakdown Structure?'

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Now, once you've created your graph, and
here's something important about the

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way Gantt charts work, equal units of
distance along the horizontal axis

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represent equal units of time.

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Once you've created that, then you
represent each activity by a bar.

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And the length of the bar represents
the duration of the task.

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And the positioning of the bar represents
the scheduling of the task.

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So, if one task follows another, then the
bar follows the previous bar.

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And so, what we often see on our Gantt 
charts, are these long diagonals of

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one activity following another in time,

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because each task is dependent on
the completion of the predecessor task

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to get started.

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But then, we might have other work
streams that run in parallel.

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The other commonly used symbol you see on 
a Gantt chart is a simple geometrical shape

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like a triangle or a diamond, that
represents a milestone.

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And we have a video on what a
milestone is as well.

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So, that's your basic Gantt chart.

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And it's very easy to read.

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And we can put a vertical line though 
the Gantt chart to indicate today.

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So that at any point in time during our
project we can read off where we should

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be in our project, and then assess the
level of completeness.

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Now of course, when you look at real 
Gantt charts produced by sophisticated

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software, they are often different sorts
of bars with different sorts of shading.

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There are sometimes different types of
milestones.

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Different shaped symbols.

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A milestone could be a decision point, or
a completion, or a gateway review for example.

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So, how do you read these complicated 
Gantt charts?

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Well my answer is, it's simple.

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If you don't know what the symbols mean,
that's not your fault.

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It's the fault of the person who created 
the Gantt chart.

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So, when you create your Gantt charts,
always be clear and put a key on the

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Gantt chart explaining what the different
symbols, and shading, and types of line mean.

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And that way your reader will be able to
understand it very simply.

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So, a Gantt chart, sometimes called a
bar chart, represents your project plan

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by making each task into a bar and putting
those bars onto a time schedule.

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Your Gantt chart is a powerful tool to 
help you think through your plan,

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to articulate it, to communicate it, and 
to monitor it during delivery.

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[intense music]

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