Gantt Chart Sensei

What is a Gantt Chart?

Most people have never heard of the Gantt chart. A Gantt Chart is a timeline that is used in project management software to illustrate how the project will run. Gantt charts is used by employes for planning projects of all sizes. Gantt is very useful for showing what work is scheduled to be done on a particular day. It also enables you to see the beginning and end dates of a project in a simple view.

On a Gantt chart, you can readily see:

The start date of the project
What the project activities are
Who is working on each task
Individual tasks, their duration’s and the sequencing of these tasks.
When tasks starts and when they are finished
How long each task takes
How tasks overlap and associate with one another
The finish date of the project.

Previously, many people used paper to create a Gantt before modern Gantt charts application appeared. Now, many people, Gantt charts are generated in Excel, or project management software which is also Software for Gantt chart.

How is a Gantt chart used in project management?

A Gantt is a type of bar chart that illustrates a project schedule. Gantt charts show the start and finish dates of the terminal components and outline the components of an endeavor. Terminal elements and summary elements constitute the work breakdown structure of the project. Modern Gantt charts like Kendo Gantt also show the dependency connections between project tasks and critical path. Gantt charts may be used to show current schedule status with percent-complete shadings and a vertical “TODAY” line, as shown here.

Gantt charts is also used in project management to represent project data that has been collected.

What is Gantt Chart Software?

With the arrival of computers, Project managers began to use computers for creating and updating their Gantt charts. In this way, they could save time for creating and updating their Gantt charts.

Gantt chart software is also called project planning, project management, or project scheduling software. Gantt chart software was created to automate the process to support more advanced Gantt requirements like creating task dependencies, adding milestones, or identifying the critical path of a project.

Many project managers traditionally utilized local desktop apps like Microsoft Project, and many still do. But now, Gantt chart software has moved online and in the cloud, allowing everyone to create shareable and collaborative Gantt charts and project plans.

Watch the video below and learn how to use Kendo Gantt Chart

What are the advantages of Gantt chart online software

Project management software has, to a great extent, improved how teams work. There are many Reasons to Use Gantt Charts in project implementation. There are two types of Gantt chart software in use today, Desktop Gantt chart and Online Gantt chart. Unlike online Gantt chart software, desktop Gantt chart software usually uses a single manager who likes to plan project individually, without a need to share the project data. Similar to managing projects in Excel, Desktop Gantt chart software like MS project offers installation to one PC per user license.

It’s very difficult to share substantial Gantt or project files with desktop Gantt chart software version. If we wish to share data, we need additional desktop licenses of the planning software for each computer and user. This significantly increases the overall cost.

Online Project management or Gantt charts software has many advantages because it supports the simplicity of collaborative and sharing project preparation and planning. Online project management or Gantt chart software supports ease of sharing and collaborative project planning.

Since the software is always online, anyone you invite can see your project plan, and update their tasks and attach documents directly to the tasks they are working on. The online Gantt Software prices are less than the desktop variants, related license prices, and since there’s no host installations, integrations.

The majority of people decides to use Online Gantt software rather than desktop Gantt software, because this way productivity is much bigger.

Benefits of Using Online Gantt Chart Software

Many individuals create task listings with use of Gantt chart in Excel. The Gantt chart excel template is still a very popular way to create a Gantt chart for individuals that are using Microsoft excel and desktop computers. All you need is to download one of the Free Gantt Chart Template for Microsoft Excel and create a simple Gantt chart.

How do I create a Gantt chart without Excel?

Using excel Gantt chart template, you can create a simple Gantt chart. If you wish more useful options and like more interaction, we suggest that you use Kendo Gantt Chart Software. Kendo is complete project management and Gantt chart software which you can use on your computer, your network or online in the cloud.

When you intend to include more individuals to the task, you have a problem if you used excel Gantt chart. It’s much easier to create the Gantt chart online with Kendo Manager. When you use Gantt chart software online such as Kendo, tasks are updated whenever anyone changes their % complete, adds a comment or attaches a file in real-time.

Benefits of using a Gantt chart, as you can see by a large number of teams and roles who can benefit from using Gantt charts, are many.

Here are a couple:

Project planning and Multiple projects planning
Schedule of projects and scheduling tasks
Tasks Planning and Real-time monitoring
Team Collaboration and Scheduling Teams’ Work

8 Must-Have Gantt Chart Software Features

Milestones

Milestones are represented by a diamond symbol on the Gantt chart and have no duration. A milestone marks the end of a piece of work or phase of the project. They are important dates in the project that you need to be aware of. Watch Video: How to Create Milestones on Kendo Gantt chart

Dependencies

Project plans usually require tasks to be performed in a specific order. Task Dependency is a relationship in which a task or a milestone relies on other tasks to be finished before it can be performed. This is also referred to as a logical relationship. A logical relationship can be a dependency between project tasks or between tasks and milestones. Watch Video: Learn how to manage task dependencies.

Gantt resources

Gantt charts provide a clear visual for every aspect of your project plan. You can see what’s scheduled when and who’s assigned to the task in real-time. And Kendo Gantt makes it simple to view resource availability and rearrange workloads with the ease of drag and drop scheduling. Let’s take a closer look at resource management in Kendo Gantt.

Collaboration

For Gantt chart collaboration is crucial. Without collaboration, Gantt chart is just a simple static plan. It’s nice to have, but it isn’t helping you advance the work. Kendo has a goal to provide powerful collaborative Gantt charts without overcomplicating things. With our Kendo Gantt chart you can chat or comment around tasks to keep the workflow documented. Your team will have information every time a task has been updated.

File Sharing

One of the most significant factors that contribute to the success of any project is successful team collaboration and communication. For projects, it’s crucial that users can share files, images, videos or other notes to other team users.

Task Progress

The progress of a Gant chart task is indicated by its % complete attribute. A Task value of 0% means that there has been no progress on the task while 100% means that the task has been completed. Kendo Manager rolls-up the percentage of completed tasks to calculate the total percentage achieved on the project.

Critical path

Every task on the Gantt chart is important, but only some of them are critical. The critical path is a chain of linked tasks on Gantt chart that directly affects the project finish date. If any task on the critical path is late, the whole project is late.

Task Reports

Task reports give you the capability to create complete task reports for the analysis and tracking of the tasks, used time and assets for projects.

How to Create a Gantt Chart like Project Sensei

It’s very easy to create a Gantt chart online in Kendo Manager. You can create tasks list, or you can create tasks directly on Gantt chart like real project sensei.

Here’s a step-by-step guide to creating an online Gantt chart with Kendo Manager:

1. Create a new project

When you log in, simply click “Create project” and enter a project name and data.

2. Add tasks.

As you add tasks, the default date will be today, and you need to select the end date. Tasks appear on The Gantt chart to the right. The red line Now represents today’s date.

3. Assign people

You can easily assign a task to anyone. Once you do, they’ll be notified about the assigned task. If you add an end date, the task will show up in that person’s Today and Next 7 Days views when it comes due

4. Add due dates

As you extend the start or end dates, the bars on the Gantt extend too, showing you how long each task will take.

5. Add task resources

You can enter a resource for a task by clicking on the Resources tab on Gantt chart view.

How to Use a Gantt Chart to Collaborate with Your Team

The Gantt chart is designed by Kendo to easily build, update and share files and information between team members. Our primary goal is to provide powerful collaborative Gantt charts without overcomplicating options. Whether you’re looking for a full-fledged project management tool, and Gantt chart software to build a quick gantt chart, or you need a simple MS Project alternative for business, Kendo Manager is the right Project management software solution.

Here’s how you can easily start collaborating with your team:

1. Assign team members to tasks

You can easily assign or reassign tasks to people based on their availability. When people are assigned to tasks, their name appears above the column assigned on the Gantt.

2. Attach Files or Comments

When your team works collaboratively on a Gantt chart, you can add images, documents, links, notes or comments right at the task-level, so all the relevant work files and documents are captured and easily accessible in one place.

3. Get Email Alerts

Your team can send email alerts. That way, whenever their tasks have been updated on the Gantt or anywhere else in the system, your team is instantly alerted to that change.

4. Kendo Manager Sensei See everything

All the updates on the Gantt can be seen in one view with My dashboard page if you are a team member. In Kendo, Project manager sees everything like true sensei using Dojo Dashboard. He can see what the team is working on and when tasks have been updated. Collaboration is easy with online Kendo Gantt charts.

How to Set up Advanced Features in Your Gantt Chart

Gantt Chart Columns

The most common Gantt chart columns are:

- Task name: Name of the task.
- Start date: The date that you aim to start working on the task.
- Task duration: Single number that reflects how many days there are between the start date and end date.
- Work hours: How many hours of work the task will take within the duration.
- Progress percentage: When the project manager updates progress percentage on a task, Kendo Manager automatically updates the percentage of completion for the project.
- Assigned: This column tells you the name of the person, people, who has been allocated to work on the task.
- Resources: In addition to planning resources at the project level, managers can plan resources at the task level.
- Dependencies: You can also show and visualize the task dependencies in Gantt chart.

Gantt chart short history

A Gantt is a horizontal bar chart developed as a production control tool in 1917 by Henry L. Gantt, an American engineer and social scientist. The first known Gantt chart tool of this type was developed in 1896 by Karol Adamiecki, who called it a harmonogram. Adamiecki did not publish his chart until 1931. Henry Gantt had the same idea, but about 15 years later. In 1910, Gantt started planning visually with bar charts to allow supervisors in the steel works to see if production was on track or behind schedule. Frequently used in project management, a Gantt chart provides a graphical illustration of a schedule that helps to plan, coordinate, and track specific tasks in a project.

Who Uses a Gantt Chart?

Today, everyone can use a Gantt charts to help them visualize tasks. Gantt are useful for planning and scheduling projects. They help you assess how long a project should take, determine the resources needed, and plan the order in which you’ll complete tasks. They’re also helpful for managing the Task dependencies. Today, all the difficult work is now done by fast computer algorithms. Computer algorithms help us to assess how long a project should take, determine the resources needed, and plan the order in which you’ll complete tasks.

Project Manager Roles and Responsibilities

Gantt charts are effective tools for roles:

Project Managers
Team Leaders
General Managers
Scheduling managers
Operations Managers
Work Managers
Marketing Managers
CEOs & CTOs
… and anyone who wants an instant view of a project timeline.

Creating task lists and complex schedules with lots of moving parts, require good organisation, good task estimation, critical path analysis, baselining and big responsibility. For example, there is one study carried out at the University of Ottawa that states close to one-third of the projects fail because of lack of involvement from the top level.

Today with the wide range of project management and Gantt chart software offerings, planning project and tracking are easy for responsible users on projects.

The Gantt Chart: A Team Tool for easy tracking projects

Because of the collaborative nature of online Gantt chart applications, more and more teams use them to plan and track their own projects. With Kendo Gantt charts, everyone is on the same page. Everyone sees the same thing. Gantt charts is a more powerful way to drive unity and accountability on projects.

Gantt charts can be used by all teams, such as:

IT & Dev Teams
Project Management Teams
PMOs
Product Development Teams
Marketing Teams
Professional Services Teams
Engineering & Architectural Teams
Construction Teams
Manufacturing Teams
Remote Teams
Telecommunications Teams
Healthcare Teams
Public Works Teams
Oil & Gas Industry teams
Government Teams

Today’s many teams often need to plan tasks and manage resources in multiple projects across different teams, too. It’s very important that the Gantt chart tool you use can support resource management, workload management, and task management across projects.

How the team works using the Gantt chart?

The Gantt chart has become one of the most used tools for project managers and teams in various industries. According to Capterra, some of the major industries employing Gantt charts include education, finance, marketing, IT and construction.

A Gantt charts can be used by anyone who needs to keep a check on projects or workflow. Gantt isn’t limited to a specific industry. Rather, multiple project roles can use the same Gantt to oversee progress from their level.

Are Online Gantt chart Software effective and Secure?

Gantt charts make your project scheduling more effective because they help managers visualize their resource capacity. This allows them to be productive allocate people to projects, so key resources don’t become overworked.

Many people who discuss the pros and cons of the internet versus Gantt desktop chart software are wondering about the security of plans for network projects. Whether you are using a Kendo Gantt chart software online or on your local network, your cloud project management server must have security protocols and data backup.

Can I use Kendo Gantt Chart on Mac?

Look no further. Rather than wait MS Project to include support for Mac OSX, you can begin immediately building Gantt charts in your own Mac using Kendo Manager. The problem is solved. Install Kendo Manager Project Server in your company server or windows VPS and use our simple project management software on your Mac. Kendo integrates seamlessly on both Mac and PC operating systems, so you can manage, track, and report on your projects from anywhere and on any device using browser. Kendo Manager is the less expensive Microsoft Project alternative for small business companies that use in his office a Mac OS.

Can I Link Tasks to Risks, Changes and Issues?

Yes. In Kendo, You can link tasks to risks, issues and changes, which makes it easy to track the process in software. Risk management, Issue Management, and Change Management on projects is an exceptionally important step in managing projects. Risks, Issues and Changes can be tracked on Kendo Manager Dashboards, for one or many active projects, depending on the roll of the user.

Discover a Better Way to Manage, Track, and Report on Projects

Kendo Manager is not only Gantt software that can be used online or in your company network. Kendo is a complete self hosted project management software with gantt chart, kanban, task management ,Time management, Cost management and resource management and other options.

Control panels (my dashboard, project dashboard, project overview, dojo)
Tasks Management
Resource Management
Gantt Chart
Kanban Board
Issue tracking
Cost Management
Project budget management
Time management
Change management
Risk management
Reports
Email notifications and internal notifications
Technical support
1-year free upgrade.
and other options.

Our goal is to help companies to successfully complete their own project plans, allocate resources and analyze workload at any time.

Related: Kendo Manager Features