A Gant Diagram is a pictoral portrayal of work effort as pieces of work across time. It aids planing and supervision of project development and resource distribution. The
left hand side of the Gant Diagram is a column with the work breakdown structure (essentially, a list of tasks). The chart component shows time progression, denote either in absolute or relative time.
In a Gant Diagram, each task occupies one row. Dates run along the top,
incremented as appropriate for the size of the project in question. Rows of
bars in the Gant Diagram show the start and end dates of each task in the
project. Tasks may occur sequentially, in parallel, or even overlap.
Most project management software (such as MS Project) allows project management
based on Gant Diagram representation of project workflow. They offer managerial
toolsets to start, track and report projects.
Sample Gant Diagram
History of the Gant Diagram
The Gant Diagram was created by Henry L. Gant, an American engineer, in 1917. He
developed the first Gant Diagram for ship-building around World War I. The Diagram
proved to be so powerful and useful that it has not undergone any changes for
nearly a century. It was only in 1990's when links between tasks were added to
the Gant Diagram.
Tip using Gant Diagram:
For large projects, tasks can be split into subtasks with their own Gant Diagrams
to maintain readability.
