What are the advantages of using Gantt chart in project management?
Gantt charts are a visualizing tool that allows us to see all of the project activities, their dependencies, milestones, resources, and project progress all in one place so that we can schedule the project to be completed efficiently and effectively. With the Gantt chart, you can do the following:
1. Visualization — The Gantt chart’s main benefit is that it aids in visualizing the big picture and broad perspective of the projects. You can learn various minute details about the project, which will help you avoid missing even the tiniest activities or timelines. The majority of the Gantt chart is based on a Software-as-a-Service architecture, which allows it to be updated from anywhere at any time and shared with various stakeholders.
2. Management — The Gantt chart allows you to manage the entire project in one go. It becomes very easy to know who works on which assignments, when, and how by breaking down the core activities and putting time durations from start to finish, and managing dependencies.
3. Progress tracking — It’s simple when you know how far along the project is at any given point in time. You understand how to manage project activities that are behind schedule and make the project work by interfering in them so that you can make a data-driven decision on the fly. The use of a Gantt chart to track progress will serve as a motivator for team members to work together to achieve the project’s goals and objectives.
4. Following dates and deadlines — By keeping track of the dates of each activity, as well as their durations, milestones, and timelines, you can make informed decisions about the project. To ensure the project’s success, you know when to intervene and make corrections, deviate, or control it from a drastic derailment. You can also see how the deadlines for each activity affect the project’s completion date. You must provide the required buffers and calculate the floats of the various activities because the project completion date cannot normally be changed. It’s important to remember that the critical path has no floats.
5. Creating dependencies between the tasks — You must structure the Gantt chart so that you can visualize and evaluate the dependencies between each of the tasks, as well as know which activities are dependent, which activities are parallel, and where there is an overlap of activities. Most Gantt charts have auto-scheduling, which means that if the duration of the predecessor activities changes, the schedule, and duration of the subsequent activities will also change.
6. Team and resource management — The management of the project’s team and resources is crucial to its success. The Gantt chart can be used as a tool for resource management, allowing you to see who is working on what and ensuring that activities are not overburdened or have too many slack periods. Team management becomes critical to the project’s success, and the Gantt chart assists everyone in working efficiently with everyone and everything involved in the plan. Because the requirements are organized in a Gantt chart, the team can focus on the tasks for which they are responsible.
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