What is a Gantt Chart | Bar Chart Excel Template [XLS]

What is a Gantt Chart?

Gantt chart is a visual view of tasks/activities scheduled overtime. Gantt charts are used for planning projects of all sizes and they are a useful way of showing what work is scheduled to be done on a specific day. They also help you view the start & end dates of a project in a simple view.

The History of Gantt Charts

The first project management bar chart was invented in 1896 by Karol Adamiecki.

A quick history of Gantt charts:

1896: Karol Adamiecki creates the first project management bar chart: the Harmonogram, a precursor to the modern Gantt chart.
1931: Adamiecki publishes the Harmonogram (but in Polish with limited exposure).
1910-1915: Henry Gantt publishes his own system in the project management, the Gantt chart.
Present Days: Gantt charts or bar charts are the preferred tool for managing projects of all types and sizes.

Features of Gantt Chart

On Gantt Chart, you can easily see:

Start and Finish dates for activities.
Project milestones.
Dependencies between activities.
The person assigned to each activity.
Duration of each activity

Advantages of Gantt Chart

You can know the project’s start date.
You can know what the project activities are.
You can see who is working on each activity.
You can see when tasks start and finish.
You can check how long each task will take
You can check how activities group together, overlap and link with each other
You can see the end date of the project.
Excel Gantt chart template saves your time by organizing the plan of your project & tackling the tedious planning work for you.
All you need to do is add your activities & the dates, and you’ll have a presentation-quality Excel Gantt chart.