Introduction

GANTT CHARTS: A Gantt chart is a useful graphical tool which shows activities or tasks
performed against time. It is also known as visual presentation of a project where the activities
are broken down and displayed on a chart which makes it is easy to understand and interpret.

USES OF GANTT CHARTS: A Gantt chart illustrates the start and finish dates of a project. It
basically deals with activities that have to be done by a fixed time period. Gantt charts are
now commonly used for tracking project schedules. That is to keep a management updated as
to when a project will get complete, inform them of any additional resource and also manage
various tasks.

HOW TO PREPARE GANTT CHART: originally Gantt charts were prepared by hand and drawn on
papers and therefore had to be redrawn entirely in order to adjust to schedule changes which
limited their usefulness. Nowadays, with the advent of technology Gantt chats are prepared
using Gantt chat software and Microsoft excel and can be adjusted and edited easily. Here are
the steps to prepare a Gantt chart:

 Define the project settings: such as its start date, end date and scheduling mode. The
most common scheduling mode is forwards from the project start date. In this mode the
default is for tasks to start as soon as possible, which means that the whole project
finishes at the earliest possible date.
 Define the project calendar: This sets the number of working days in the week, the
number of working hours in the day, and so on. Enter or edit task names and durations.

 Set up a global resources list and assign resources to tasks: Although you can often
define the resources as you need them, it is usually quicker to start by setting up a
global resources list from which you can then select resources to assign to the various
project tasks.

 Create links to specify the dependencies between the project tasks.

 Set constraints on the tasks as necessary.

 Make final adjustments to the project plan.

 Once the project has actually started, inspect it at regular intervals to detect potential
problems or scheduling conflicts and make any corrections required.