Across all leading industries, project management is integral to their success and today you’ll understand it with Gantt charts. Whether it’s construction, engineering, or IT, wise planning, initiation, and successful implementation of projects and monitoring cause lasting success. There are many different methodologies and techniques for project management.
Gantt charts are the perfect way to break down vast tasks into simple, manageable chunks. A Gantt chart is a visual representation of a project’s timeline that shows each individual task and its respective place in the project’s timeline. They allow business owners to keep track of projects and help them anticipate potential delays or overlaps in their workflow. With clear guidelines and simple visuals, Gantt charts offer business owners the tools they need to plan their projects easily.
Let’s look at the role of Gantt Charts in different project management methods.
What are Gantt Charts
Gantt chart is named after its popularizer, Henry Gantt, who designed it during 1910-1915 to record the progress of different workers in their tasks, whether the schedule is behind, ahead, or on track. Gantt charts are the most common project management tools that illustrate tasks to be completed on a planned course of time for it.
Initially, Gantt charts were written out on paper before the rise of computers around 1985. After that, they became elaborate, complex, and better. And today, they are one of the best and most used tools for project management.
Before diving into its full benefits, let’s look at the 3 main project management methods.
1] Waterfall Project Management
Like traditional management, which includes tasks and people assigned to each task, waterfall project management includes deadlines and stipulations that a given task must be finished before undertaking the next one. Steps in such direction are linear and unidirectional, hence the name waterfall. Usually, working members will grow in this technique of management.
2] Agile Project Management
This method of project management has its basis originating in the principles of the Agile Manifesto. Based on 12 core principles, the computer software industry implemented agile project management. Unlike the stage-by-stage approach, its phases are completed parallel to each other by members of an enterprise. As a result, high-quality deliverables and continuous monitoring become possible.
3] Lean Project Management
This technique started in Japanese industries. It is an efficient business model that streamlines resources to ensure projects are completed more quickly and with fewer costs. It looks at the elements of a business process and sees how they can be improved by using existing structures, processes, and resources. This model benefits businesses that want to remain agile while keeping costs low.
Lean Project Management emphasizes eliminating wasteful elements of business processes and focuses on creating value for customers through strategic improvements. By utilizing this approach, businesses can optimize their project management for increased efficiency and improved customer satisfaction.
Basics of the Gantt chart
A Gantt Chart visually displays activities within a timeline, making it easier for project teams to identify tasks that can be done simultaneously or with overlapping timelines. Moreover, this business tool helps project managers to track resource allocation and stay updated on deliveries and project goals. Its user-friendly design makes it ideal for both beginners and experienced professionals by presenting simplified yet comprehensive reviews of progress based on bar graphs and other visual graphics.
Other things included in a Gantt chart are:
- Start and end date of tasks
- Milestones
- Dependencies between tasks
- Assignees
This way, an organization can fully view all its significant tasks.
Creating Gantt Charts
To create a chart, use the vertical axis to list tasks and the horizontal axis to mention timelines. Most Gantt charts are made in Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets. With Excel, there isn’t an essential feature for creating a Gantt chart. However, work can be done in the form of templates. It lets you do more than just make a diagram of tasks, timelines, and deadlines; you can do these things much faster.
Gantt chart software allows you to add additional tabs to manage projects efficiently. You can create accounts and list things like work breakdown structure and tasks assigned to each team member. The Gantt Charts help easily track a project’s progress in real-time. You can update your project schedule by dragging and dropping timelines. And such charts help organizations and industries manage costs, balance, resources, and more.
Now, let’s look at a few of the most common and powerful Gantt chart software. But before that, here’s what you may need to know about Gantt chart software.
Gantt chart software
Project management has always been more challenging than before the introduction of computers and laptops. With new ways of working, project managers have found ways to save time while creating and updating Gantt charts. Gantt chart software is developed to automate the management process for more support, quick deliverables, time-saving and better monitoring. These are also called Project Planning, Project Scheduling Software, or Project Management.
Local computers and laptop programs like Microsoft Project work quite well. But with the advent of internet connectivity and faster connection speeds, specifically 4G, many project managers prefer online software. Moving their work data to online project management software has enabled them to create shareable and collaborative Gantt charts, diagrams, templates, and plans.
Now that we know what Gantt chart software is, here are 3 most popular, powerful, and convenient project management software:
1. Project Manager
The Project Manager allows you to create dynamic charts and diagrams with your team members. Plans can be easily executed in multiple views by the team. The Gantt chart updates automatically with the Project Manager as progress is ready. It is an online hub for work-based things with numerous free project management templates, providing organizations with building a Gantt chart and creating strategies and action plans to conveniently assign those tasks to the members of their team.
2. Jira Software Gantt Charts
Gantt chart tools, nowadays, are commonly known as roadmap tools. Roadmap tools like Jira Software keep up with the demands of modern software. It includes valuable and modern features like a collapsible task structure and different panels for resource management. It helps to maintain a coherent strategy for any given project. Jira has two tools to create Gantt charts.
Roadmaps
It creates plans and strategies around Jira issues that an organization assigns to team members.
Advanced Roadmaps
Advanced Roadmaps also create plans and strategies. But here, it is up across multiple teams and organizations.
So, despite the iteration in the software development process, a coherent project strategy can be up. Jira also works effectively with eazyBI.
3. ClickUp
ClickUp is one of the best apps for project management using Gantt charts that works with Jira and other software like Confluence, REST API, and SQL. Custom reports, charts, and dashboard gadgets can be easily up using ClickUp. They are easy to use and work like drag-and-drop. Project management for business intelligence, data analysis, or custom reports can easily be up with the ClickUp tools.
Importing is also easy. And data can be present from various data sources, including Jira.
It provides tools for visualization, analysis, calculations, and customizations. It is the leading app and is available on the various reporting pages; Atlassian Marketplace for Cloud, Server, and Data Center.
Use Gantt charts to undertake new projects quickly.
Every big industry must see that its projects are efficient and effectively. And with the advent of Gantt charts and its software, such management has never been challenging. Whether it’s Project Manager, Jira, eazyBI, or any other software, Henry Gantt’s introduction of Gantt charts has become more advanced, detailed, complex, specific, and automated with the advent of computers and the internet.
Organizations and team members can easily undertake new projects and execute them using Gantt charts. Different Gantt chart software offers some features, but most are familiar. All these software meet the main goals of any leading industry.
Team collaboration, planning and scheduling projects and tasks, timelines, resource management, and monitoring; all these features are provided by most Gantt chart software.
Hence, project management using Gantt charts is integral to successful organizations.
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