Gantt charts are strongly associated with waterfall-type project management. In other words, each project phase must complete before the next step can begin, and phases are never repeated. To create an effective Gantt chart , it will have to contain important information, such as:. Thanks to user-friendly project management software , creating a Gantt chart has never been simpler, even for a novice.
In fact, Gantt charts are consistently among the top five most used and requested features in project management software. A recent survey of project managers found that 52 percent of the projects completed in the past 12 months experienced scope creep, a significant increase from the 43 percent reported five years ago. A Gantt chart illustrates the breakdown structure of the project by showing the start and finish dates as well as various relationships between project activities, and in this way helps you track the tasks against their scheduled time or predefined milestones.
Regrettably, Microsoft Excel does not have a built-in Gantt chart template as an option. However, you can quickly create a Gantt chart in Excel by using the bar graph functionality and a bit of formatting. Please follow the below steps closely and you will make a simple Gantt chart in under 3 minutes.
We will be using Excel for this Gantt chart example, but you can simulate Gantt diagrams in any Excel version in the same way. You start by entering your project's data in an Excel spreadsheet. List each task is a separate row and structure your project plan by including the Start date , End date and Duration , i. As a result, you will have the following Stacked bar added to your worksheet:. The Select Data Source window will open. And you need to add Duration there as well.
Click the Add button to select more data Duration you want to plot in the Gantt chart. The Edit Series window opens and you do the following: In the Series name field, type " Duration " or any other name of your choosing. Alternatively, you can place the mouse cursor into this field and click the column header in your spreadsheet, the clicked header will be added as the Series name for the Gantt chart. Click the range selection icon next to the Series Values field. A small Edit Series window will open.
Select your project Duration data by clicking on the first Duration cell D2 in our case and dragging the mouse down to the last duration D Make sure you have not mistakenly included the header or any empty cell. Click the Collapse Dialog icon to exit this small window.
This will bring you back to the previous Edit Series window with Series name and Series values filled in, where you click OK. Now that I have my list of tasks, I open a blank project and add all these tasks to my project. To do that you have to copy and paste them or click in the task name field and type in the name of each task. Also, if you have tasks that are related to each other, you can group them as subtasks.
This may be helpful for larger projects since they allow you to collapse sections of your project to save some screen space and make the list of tasks easier to look through. Just highlight the task rows that are related and click the right indent button in the ribbon. This will turn the highlighted tasks into subtasks of the item.
Click in the start date field and use the date picker to select the start date for the task. You can also do it manually and enter the date by yourself.
Do the same for the end date. Click in the end date field and use the date picker or enter the date manually. If you prefer, you can just enter a duration into the duration field and MS Project will automatically calculate the end date for you. Milestones may help you to make sure that your project is running just on time and indicate the end of specific phases of the project.
There are several ways to add milestones to the project. Enter a duration of zero days for a task that is already on the list. MS Project will automatically convert this task into a milestone. Or, insert the row where you want to create a milestone and click on the milestone button. Since milestones are usually used to mark the end of a particular phase of the project, it can be helpful to link appropriate tasks to those milestones.
Just highlight the tasks that should be linked to the milestone and click the Link button in the ribbon. For more information regarding the work with milestones in Microsoft Project, you can read a quick guide here. Clear instructions. Easy to follow. No jargon. Pictures helped. Didn't match my screen. Incorrect instructions. Too technical. Not enough information.
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