What is a Gantt Chart? I get asked this all the time and by the end of this video
you're going to learn exactly what is a Gantt Chart, the purpose of a Gantt Chart,
and how does a Gantt Chart look like? And if you want to become a project Ninja stay tuned
to the end of this video because I have a really special checklist just for you that's going to
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if you're excited about learning about Gantt Charts please like this video, let's get to it.
What is a Gantt Chart? A Gantt Chart is a type of bar chart that illustrates the project
schedule. It can also show dependencies amongst activities, and can actually show you
the current schedule of those particular activities. What it is not, it's not the
project plan and that's a big mistake a lot of people make. It's really all there to show you
about milestones and timing of your activities. Is a Gantt Chart right for your project? Well,
in order to answer that question first let's have an understanding of the benefits
and disadvantages of a Gantt Chart so you can decide if this is going to be a good tool for you.
So what are some of the benefits of a Gantt Chart? Well, it's an amazing tool to see at a glance all
of your high-level milestones and major activities within your project from start to finish, so
wonderful tool for that, great planning tool. A second thing that it also is it can show you
dependencies of tasks and in the planning stage this becomes really important because it's going
to help you have an understanding of resource loading and some other things, and perhaps where
there may be some overlap of activities that you may have to put some risk mitigation plan into.
And last but not least it's a great way to understand the sequencing of events because
you can have things organized in a way where you can kind of see how each one is feeding
into each other. So that is definitely some core benefits of a Gantt Chart.
So what are some disadvantages of a Gantt Chart? Well first and foremost it can be really,
really overwhelming to project team members who are not used to working with Gantt Charts.
There are a lot of individuals out there who are project team members who just don't work
in a Gantt Chart daily, and it can be extremely overwhelming, particularly when you have the
one that's at a glance and it's kind of showing everything. So that can be a real big roadblock
and really create some issues for your team because they start to feel overwhelmed.
A second aspect of Gantt Charts which is really important and ties into why it's not
the project plan is that there really isn't anywhere to communicate, provide comments,
and really manage your tasks on an individual level. It really is an overview at a glance,
so that's a real big disadvantage and why you don't want to have it your main
document. It's a supporting document, which is really important to understand.
So with that in mind, and those two big disadvantages,
you can still have a Gantt Chart as a project manager to have that overview, and you may need it
in order to share it with your sponsors, but you may want to consider for the rest of your team,
depending on how big your project is, that you can do a project calendar instead, more
of a calendar format. Particularly if you have a smaller project with more compressed timelines
that may be something that is maybe a little bit easier to manage, particularly if you have a team
that feels a little overwhelmed on a Gantt Chart. Gantt Chart examples. Now the cool thing with
Gantt Charts is there's many ways to create a Gantt Chart, and so I'm going to share with you
all the different ways you can do it. So the first one is Word, you can actually create a Gantt chart
in word. I do this for very simple small projects when I just want to have an understanding of the
overarching timeline kind of at a glance. That's a really easy way to do it and it's something
that is very simple and a lot of people can understand. And again, because it's in Word
you're not putting in a lot of stuff in there. The second aspect is Excel. This probably a
little more common for a lot of people because it does act very traditionally to some other
Gantt Charts that are out there. And again, if you're working with Excel with a project plan
those two really merge well together so you may want to consider using that.
Another one is Vizio. So Vizio really acts very similar in look and feel to let's say Microsoft
Project, which we'll talk about in a moment. So Vizio, it's going to show you dependencies,
you can put in your start and end dates, all that great fun stuff that has some advantages
to then let's say a Word document or Excel document that do not have those types of links.
And last but not least, one of the creme to the creme when it comes to Gantt Charts is Microsoft
Project. That's really what Microsoft Project is, it's a Gantt Chart, it's a huge Gantt Chart,
but it is programmed, so you have dependencies and you can really easily move things around
because it's a program, it's a software program, and it's going to do it for you, and you can
import dates from other Excel sheets, et cetera. So you just have to decide which one is for you
and I really do it based on the simplicity or complexity of a project
as to which one I'm going to use. One thing just to take note of,
if you're going to do a Gantt Chart and you're going to use Microsoft Project,
just make sure everyone has access to it because you're going to have to get licensing for everyone
on it, so that's just a little side note for you. And those are examples of some Gantt Charts. Now
that you know everything about Gantt Charts I would like for you to go to the link under this
video, this YouTube video, grab this, this is an amazing resource for you, a checklist to teach you
all the things you have to be aware of, of how to make your project successful. It is chock
full of tons of stuff, and it's free just for you. So I want to thank you for staying to the end of
this video, I really appreciate it. Any comments you have please put them below, I do respond back.
And on that note I look forward to seeing you at the next video. See you later, bye.