The Advantages and Limitations of Gantt Charts in Project Management

A key benefit of a Gantt chart is its ability to show a top-line perspective of a project. Gantt charts help workers and managers track tasks; managers can also use them to allocate resources wisely in order to finish a project.

Here are some of the main benefits of Gantt charts:

• It Provides a High-Level Overview: A Gantt chart provides an overall perspective of a project and its timeline — for both those who are deeply involved and those with less participation, such as executives and other stakeholders.
  
  A Gantt chart is visually appealing and easy to understand. It provides critical information about tasks at a glance, including the order in which they begin and their duration.
• It Improves Efficiency and Helps Manage Resources: A Gantt chart can help ensure that leaders and workers manage their time and resources effectively. Project leaders can use it to set realistic schedules and allocate resources based on those schedules, including assigning the right people to the right tasks. It can also help project members come up with workarounds for potential problems before a project starts.
• It Allows for Better Tracking: A Gantt chart enables project leaders and members to closely track tasks, benchmarks, and overall workflow. The chart can reveal possible constraints or issues and allow project leaders and members to adjust accordingly.
• It Illustrates Overlaps and Dependencies: A Gantt chart clearly communicates how tasks in a project might overlap. It also shows how the beginning of one task can be dependent on the completion of another task. That kind of information allows project leaders to schedule work and provide resources in a way that doesn’t impede the progress of a project.
• It Boosts Productivity: A Gantt chart allows for collaboration among workers to boost their productivity. The high-level visibility of a Gantt chart helps people stay focused on the tasks they must complete. That visibility also ensures the accountability of all team members regarding their tasks.
• It Allows You to Balance Multiple Projects: A Gantt chart allows managers to easily track multiple projects. It then enables those managers to balance the work on each project because the chart indicates how to provide the right resources at the right time.
• It Makes Complex Information Manageable: The visual clarity that a Gantt chart provides can help simplify a complex set of tasks. The chart displays tasks clearly and simply for the people who must do the work. Such transparency enables team members to stay focused and avoid becoming overwhelmed by a large number of tasks.
• It Helps You Set Realistic Deadlines and Expectations: A Gantt chart lays out all the tasks that a team must accomplish in order to complete a project. The chart also illustrates the relationships and dependencies among those tasks. Such coherent visual communication allows for a realistic view of the time it takes to complete the work. Consequently, having access to such accurate information allows you to set realistic deadlines for each task and for the entire project.
• It Helps Keep Everyone Aligned, Including Remote Workers: When everyone on a project team (including remote workers and those in other offices) has easy access to the same information, all work on the project remains aligned. The chart improves communication and collaboration among everyone.
• It Motivates Team Members: A Gantt chart enables team members to visualize their tasks, thereby motivating them to do their work on the project. Team members can view the project moving forward and watch other members completing their tasks. The chart also shows how certain tasks can’t begin until another task is completed. All that visibility enables people to complete their tasks well and on time.