Gantt Charts Explained
A Gantt chart is a project management solution that shows the progression of tasks across the project timeline. Gantt charts offer a unique opportunity to incorporate additional data points into a project timeline that wouldn’t be available otherwise. These charts are integral to the success of teams in the modern world, and they are often seen across all industries and workplaces large and small.
Gantt charts offer team managers the ability to convey large sets of data and information to their team members with ease and in an intuitive manner. This is particularly important today, as team members are often spread across large distances; sometimes, these teams have never met in person. With the realities of the current workplace circumstances weighing down on teams, new and innovative opportunities for group cohesion and coordination have sprung to life. However, a Gantt chart is a great option for maintaining team unity, and surprisingly, this visualization tool has been in existence for over 100 years.
Gantt charts offer a unique opportunity to display information and ensure that team members are consistently working together toward group goals and timelines. Continue reading to learn more about how Gantt charts can revolutionize the way you and your team work together to solve company problems and meet deadlines for product rollouts and other business needs and targets.
Gantt charts offer a variety of different pieces of information in a simple display.
One of the main benefits of a Gantt chart is the opportunity to incorporate a variety of personalized and additional data points into the final product. A Gantt chart often utilizes color gradients to signify tasks designated to individual members of the team and other similar elements. Alternatively, Gantt charts can use unique color options to signify the change between product development phases and other milestones in the timeline presented to team members. Labels can be added, as well, in an effort to provide greater context to specific elements of the chart.
The Gantt chart was conceptualized in the mid-1890s by a Polish engineer named Karol Adamiecki, who called it a harmonogram. Adamieki was working to incorporate more sophisticated project management techniques in the steelwork facility that he was a part of. Later, an American engineer named Henry Gantt produced his own version of this project management tool and popularized the technique. Now, these tools are used worldwide and are a well-recognized means of tracking project timelines across phases and tasks, as well as other elements of product rollouts, marketing calendars, and much more.
Gantt Charts are an essential tool in maintaining continuity across remote teams.
Today, many teams are finding it difficult to maintain continuity and cohesion as a result of remote work. While working from home has remained an essential component of health and safety measures during the coronavirus pandemic, it can quickly instill an adverse effect on the efficiency of teams both large and small. These project management visualization tools offer a new way forward that can help teams maintain their momentum, no matter where each team member is working from.
Gantt charts provide an easy-to-access and simple-to-understand metric for tracking changes and project deadlines and intermittent phase changes throughout the development and rollout process of any particular project that a team may be working on. These tools have become crucial in the ongoing success of businesses of all types. In the United states and all around the world, brands have understood the value that Gantt charts provide; however, they are taking on a whole new utility in today’s business landscape.
Consider utilizing these tools to maintain planning and project efficiency throughout your business.