To Gantt Chart or Not to Gantt Chart? Pros and Cons Explained

Maybe you’ve been told you must use a Gantt chart on your project, or you’re on the fence about whether using one is the right choice for your next project. Either way, there are some pros and cons to Gantt charts that you’ll want to consider, because they aren’t exactly the holy grail of project planning.

I’ve worked on thousands of projects in my career so I speak from experience when I tell you that Gantt charts CAN be helpful, but they’re not a one-size-fits-all solution.

What are Gantt charts great for?

One of the biggest misconceptions I see around Gantt charts is that people think the Gantt chart IS the project plan, and that’s just not true. They are a great supplement to your action plan, but they’re a scheduling tool, not a daily task tracker, so don’t try to use them for day-to-day Management.

What Gantt charts are ideal for is:

• mapping out dependencies,
• understanding flow,
• and doing high-level forecasting.

But they don’t replace the communication and coordination needed to actually run your project day to day.

When should you create a Gantt chart?

Ideally you should create your Gantt chart after you already have a project charter and detailed WBS action plan in place – because those documents will give you all the information you need to build your Gantt.

Keep in mind that Gantt charts are meant to give you a high-level overview of your project timeline – not to replace other key project planning documents. That’s where I see PMs run into trouble – when they try to plan their whole project with a Gantt, and then end up having to constantly move everything around. Doing that inevitably leads to bigger problems as the project progresses.

Want more…

I’ve got more to share on the pros and cons of Gantt charts, so I put together a video on them which talks about:

• why a Gantt chart might overwhelm your team, and how to avoid that
• manually creating Gantts versus using software
• alternative to Gantt charts and when to turn to them

Follow me over to YouTube and we’ll keep chatting about this!

Cheers,

Adriana Girdler, PMP | Creator of Slay Project Management™

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