At Remitly, we’re all about helping you keep your business in order. This means providing you with easy-to-implement tools to work smarter, not harder. If you’re a small business owner looking to maximise your profit and streamline your workflow, it’s crucial to keep a close eye on how projects are progressing.
A Gantt chart is a visual system that helps you plan and track a project’s progress. Essentially, a Gantt chart is a timeline that shows the amount of work actually completed in a given amount of time versus the amount of work planned for those periods.
Overview of Gantt charts
Think of an engineer. You’re probably imagining someone who is organised, mathematical, and organised, with an eye for detail and a penchant for logical thinking. Henry Gantt was an American mechanical engineer and management consultant working at the turn of the 20th century. In 1910, he created a new way to manage complicated projects—the Gantt chart was born.
Gantt charts are bar graphs that are still used today to illustrate a project schedule. Modern Gantt charts facilitate collaboration and prioritisation by showing the dependencies between different tasks and the current schedule status of the project.
Benefits of using Gantt chart templates
If you’re a small business owner, using Gantt charts offers a number of advantages.
- Visual representation
By providing a visual timeline of a project, it is easier to understand the scope and duration of tasks.
- Task scaffolding
Breaking big projects into smaller, manageable tasks makes it easier to plan and track progress.
- Timeline clarity
Clear start and end dates, as well as intermediary milestones, allow for better project scheduling.
- Resource mapping
Easily see what resources, like specific people or equipment, are needed for individual tasks, increasing efficiency by preventing resource-related work holdups.
- Delegation management
By better understanding the timelines of specific tasks and what resources are needed for each, managers can better delegate work across a team.
- Dependency identification and planning
Ensure that all the prerequisite tasks are completed before moving forward with the project.
- Team alignment
Help team members collaborate effectively by understanding their roles, responsibilities, and deadlines.
- Performance tracking
By providing real-time updates about project progress and task completion, Gantt charts allow managers to monitor progress and make adjustments if needed.
- Motivation
By completing small tasks and reaching milestones, these charts can help contribute to a sense of achievement.
How Gantt charts enhance project management
If your small business is a one-person operation, using a Gantt chart can help you track all of your tasks. This can be helpful if you’re working on a lot of different things at the same time. A project might consist of marketing, contracting, budgeting, planning, work, edits, invoicing, and receiving payments. That’s a lot for one person to remember. A Gantt chart can help you hold yourself accountable.
On the other hand, if your business involves a team of coworkers who are collaborating on the same project, a Gantt chart can help keep everyone organised. A shared Gantt chart becomes the heart of a project, where everyone is checking in on dependent tasks, resources, and deadlines. It’s a visual way to understand who’s working on what, and when.
Creating a Gantt chart with ease
If you’re ready to start creating your own Gantt chart, start by identifying your project. From there, follow the steps below to customise your visualisation.
Step-by-step guide to customizing your template
Although it is possible to create a Gantt chart from scratch, it’s advisable to use a template to get yourself started. Once you choose a template, you can customise it to fit your project parameters and goals.
- Define the project scope and objectives. Identify the project’s goals and deliverables. Define the boundaries and scope of the project. Try to anticipate potential constraints and risks.
- Identify key tasks and subtasks. Create a work breakdown structure (WBS) to organise tasks. Identify the small actions that contribute to the completion of larger tasks.
- Create a timeline. Determine the projected duration of each task by assigning a start and end date to every action item.
- Identify dependencies and milestones. Determine which tasks have prerequisites that must be completed before the project can move forward. Highlight milestone moments in work that indicate important phases of the project.
- Assign responsibilities and resources. Connect each task with the person who is responsible for completing it. You can also identify resources that will be necessary for each task to be completed.
- Monitor progress and make adjustments. Remember to check in on your progress regularly. A Gantt chart is a responsive document that will be best used if you’re updating it as work is being completed. If needed, make adjustments to deadlines and targeted milestones.
How to assign tasks and track progress
Typically, Gantt chart tasks have an accompanying column that indicates the person to whom the task is assigned. Gantt charts also use a colored bar to visualise the progress of each task.
Top free Gantt chart templates for small businesses
Gantt charts have been in use for over a hundred years. This means that there are plenty of free resources available. Below, you’ll find a selection of free templates to help you get started.
Excel Gantt chart templates
One of the most popular programs for making Gantt charts is Microsoft Excel. As a result, the company offers five different Gantt chart templates that you can use for free. These templates offer a starting point for planning your project. They are customisable within Excel.
Google sheets and other tools
Aside from Excel, there are plenty of other free Gantt chart templates available online. Some of our favorites are below:
- Google Sheets is an online spreadsheet application that hosts your documents in the cloud. This makes it easy to access your Gantt charts from any device with an internet connection.
- Airtable is a cloud-based spreadsheet database that provides Gantt chart templates for free.
- Canva offers aesthetically pleasing Gantt chart templates that make project planning a little more fun.
- GanttPRO provides Gantt charts that are industry-specific. Whether you’re in construction, web design, or event planning, they have a Gantt chart template for you.
Managing projects with Gantt charts
Streamlining project timelines and scheduling
For complicated projects, Gantt charts provide an easy way to understand interrelated timelines. This can contribute to successful scheduling and prioritisation of tasks.
Handling dependencies and end dates
Work often gets stopped up when necessary prerequisite tasks are not yet completed. This results in wasted time and interrupts the workflow. By mapping out dependencies, Gantt charts help ensure that you and your team are working as efficiently as possible. You can see what tasks can be completed right away versus tasks that are pending based on dependencies.
By understanding the relationship between scaffolded tasks, you’ll be able to accurately predict the end date of your project overall.
Why Gantt charts are essential for small businesses
Gantt charts have all of the information you need to manage a project in one place. For any small business, creating a Gantt chart creates an invaluable resource for a project.
Maximising efficiency and productivity
Using a Gantt chart will maximise your efficiency and productivity by strengthening your time management. By visualizing timelines and deadlines, you can stay on track with long-term projects and make sure tasks are completed on time.
Visualizing project tasks and milestones
By creating a clear view of project progress and milestones, Gantt charts increase transparency and accountability. This can help to motivate project participants because they know that their contributions—no matter how big or small—will be noticed. Completing scaffolded tasks also creates a positive working rhythm that can keep morale high.
Gantt charts in the UAE
How people manage their projects and their time depends on personal preference. That being said, Gantt charts were recently ranked as a top ten project planning tool for corporate businesses in the UAE.
If you’re moving to the UAE and starting your own business or joining an existing one, consider building Gantt charts into your management system to visualise complicated projects and create a positive and transparent working environment.
FAQs
How do I make sure to choose the right type of Gantt chart template?
Start by understanding your project as intimately as possible. Consider the level of detail required and the features you need, like task dependencies, resource allocations, and status tracking. Choose a template that has the features that you need.
What are some advanced features of Gantt charts?
Make sure you’re leveraging your Gantt charts to the fullest extent. Hierarchical task views allow you to easily expand and collapse sub-tasks. Color-coded task types help you easily visually identify related action items. Dynamic task statuses let you know what parts of your project are on schedule, delayed, or completed. Check out Gantt chart tutorial videos in order to better understand how you can use all of the features of this tool.