Over the last few years, Gantt charts have become popular when it comes to managing and handling projects. That’s why today thousands of companies including startups use Gantt charts for boosting work productivity, improving team communications, and tracking results. And not just this, there are a lot more benefits that a Gantt Chart offer which means it is worth knowing in detail about it. Here’s a detailed description about Gantt Chart including their history, basics and benefits for your business.
“Still trying to manage your projects? Switch to ProofHub!”
Gantt Chart: A Short History
Before we begin to explore the benefits of Gantt Chart for our business projects, let’s find out a little about its history. hile the first Gantt charts were created by a polish engineer named Karol Adamiecki in the early-20th century, it’s named after an American engineer, Henry Gantt,The person behind the creation of Gantt Chart was Karol Adamiecki, a Polish engineer who invented them during early 20th century. However, the Gantt Charts got their name from an American engineer, Henry Gantt. Initially, Gantt charts weren’t popular till the death of Henry Gantt but by 1950s, the world had started using Gantt Charts for successful accomplishment of their projects.
The First Gantt Chart
Gantt Chart wasn’t the same at the time of its inception as it is today. The first Gantt Chart was a series of tasks on the left hand side of the paper and a calendar of dates on the top. In order to estimate the project completion time, one had to color in a bar which represented the duration required for individual task. This helped everyone to track the progress of the project. Also, the milestone charts were used in conjunction with the basic Gantt Chart in order to represent the important and relevant portions of a project. Today, we see the two charts altogether which allows us to find the timeline and milestone expectations in one place.
Today, Gantt chart has become a common tool amongst project managers for keeping a check over the status of a project. Also, with technology, we have software like ProofHub which gives us an easy access to Gantt chart.
Gantt Chart Basics
Precisely, a Gantt chart helps managers and teams to visually plan and track their projects. It includes tasks to be done along with the assignment details and timelines that display their status. This gives team members easy access to project milestones and deadlines without hunting emails for relevant information. Also Gantt charts helps:
- An individual to match his performance with the requirement of the project
- Team members to keep a check on order of tasks and milestones
- Managers to run projects smoothly.
Everyone who has ever been through the process of project management is well aware of the challenges that come along the way. Managing deadlines and aligning everyone’s performance with the project isn’t possible manually. With Gantt chart, you have everything visually represented in front of you which makes it easier to handle the project for everyone in the team.
Gantt Chart App — ProofHub
Without a sophisticated project management software, everything including clients, deadlines, stakeholders, remote teams etc goes for toss. This is where ProofHub can rescue you. Following are the must-to-know benefits of ProofHub:
Helps in Visual Based Planning
With Gantt Charts, you can set, assign and track project status through a visual timeline. ProofHub offers this amazing feature to all its users and help them manage their projects seamlessly.
Seamlessly Tracking Project Status
ProofHub helps you to track project status and keep your team members and clients updated as well. This gives everyone a clear idea about the projects that have been completed and in progress.
Prioritize Tasks
ProofHub lets you set logical relationships between milestones and tasks. It also lets its users determine the dependency of tasks on each other which makes helps them understand the priority of tasks.
Visual and Practical Project Management
With a visual timeline, you can easily stay on top of things. Basic information about tasks, their duration, dependency is always always available on the go making it easier for you to manage your work.
A Unified View :Using Gantt Chart tool in ProofHub, you can get a unified view of all projects at a single place which gives you a clear idea about they way resources are allocated across various projects. In this way, you can keep your work and team on track.
Ways to Use Gantt Chart for your Projects
By now, you must have got a glimpse about the benefits of a Gantt chart for your business projects. Here’s an attempt to give you a detailed insight about the multiple ways you can use Gantt charts for successful accomplishment of your projects.
Work in an Organized Way
Gantt Charts enables you to channelize your energies in a productive way. They help you focus on one task at a time, complete it and then move on to another. In this way, you can easily accomplish small milestones and ultimately the bigger goal of your project.
Track Your Progress Consistently
Gantt charts help you to prioritize tasks as per their importance in a project. This helps everyone working in a project to streamline their work accordingly. When everyone can clearly see the project status as and when required, it automatically makes them work as per the timelines of the project. Here, the work of a manager gets done as he doesn’t have to send out constant reminders to his team for the approaching deadline. He can simply track individual and overall project progress through a Gantt chart.
Helps you Set Realistic Deadlines
The right side of the Gantt Chart includes an important feature for project management- a timeline. While assigning tasks, one can easily figure out the time that would be required to complete it and help you to set achievable milestones. Also, ensure that while deciding time frames you consider other tasks which need to be done during this process. This would help you avoid interruptions in your project.
Makes Work Clutter-Free
Gantt charts makes you avoid that chaos that comes after reading 100 emails to fetch a single update on your project. Comprehending diagrams and charts is much easier than reading through paragraphs. Gantt Charts does that for you. One glance at the Gantt chart and you know the whole picture of the project.
Let Your Team Stay Informed
Gantt Chart is the best way to make your team work together towards the common project goal. With the help of Gantt Chart, everyone can easily find status,deadlines and tasks allocated to them and thus can work accordingly. Knowing clearly about the project objectives and tasks keeps everyone in the team on the same page. This also impacts overall efficiency of a team creating positive results.
Collaboration Becomes Easier
With the help of Gantt charts, you can easily assign or re-assign team members to tasks as per their role and availability. Once you have assigned, the names will appear on the task bar on the Gantt. You can represent different people with different colors which means Gantt chart can be customized as per your requirement.
It lets you attach files, comments, images, videos, notes and links as well. Also, you can customize email alerts which keeps others informed of the completed tasks through emails. Overall, team collaboration and communication is a simpler job with Gantt Charts.
Overall, Gantt Charts are a powerful tool for project management. They can keep your team inspired towards their work and help them work in a planned way. Also, it helps them focus on right tasks at the right time. This external form of motivation is a great way to avoid project delays and keep your team dedicated for the project. Also, this is a good way to foster creativity and stronger collaboration bonds within the team.
“Still running your business and teams on emails? Switch to ProofHub.”
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Vartika Kashyap currently runs the marketing team at ProofHub — a project management software for teams of all sizes. She is a seasoned marketing professional who is an expert in digital marketing and entrepreneurship. She’s been featured among LinkedIn’s Top Voices for the year 2016. Connect with Vartika on LinkedIn, Medium and Twitter.
Also follow our company page @ProofHub to get the recent updates about our tool, published articles, motivational quotes & presentations.
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Gantt Chart in Project Management was originally published in ProofHub Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
