Gantt chart: what it is, what it is for and how to make one in Excel

A Gantt chart is a chart that shows a project’s tasks on a timeline: each task is a bar running from its start date to its end date. It lets you see at a glance what needs doing, when and who is responsible. It is named after Henry Gantt, who popularised it in the early twentieth century.

What it is for

• Planning: work out how long a project lasts and in what order the tasks are done.
• Communicating: show the plan to team and clients with a single picture.
• Checking: compare what was supposed to happen with what happened.
• Assigning: see who is busy with what and when.

How to make a Gantt chart in 5 steps

1. List the tasks: break the project down into concrete pieces of work.
2. Estimate the duration of each task.
3. Find the dependencies: what must finish before another task can start.
4. Assign an owner to every task.
5. Put everything on the calendar and update the chart during the project.

An example

Task	Owner	Start	End	Weeks
Analysis	Maria	January 4	January 22	3
Development	Paolo	January 25	March 12	7
Delivery	Maria	March 15	March 26	2

In the chart these rows become three bars one after the other: you immediately see that development is the longest part and that delivery depends on it.

The most common mistakes

• Too many rows: if the chart is unreadable, group the tasks.
• Forgetting dependencies: a delay upstream moves everything else.
• Not updating it: a month-old Gantt chart does more harm than good.
• No buffer: if everything is planned to the day, the first surprise breaks the plan.

How to make it in Excel

You can start from our Gantt chart template in Excel, free and with no sign-up: write the tasks, start and end, and the bars draw themselves.

The limit of Excel is that the sheet stays separate from the real work. That is why we are preparing Projekta, Kamzan’s project management software, where the project plan is made of the same tasks the team works on.