Office sheets and plannersDays, weeks or months
Gantt chart
A landscape Gantt chart to plan a project on paper. Each row is a task with its owner and its start and end; the grid to the right is the timeline, in days, weeks or months. Shade each task's cells across the periods it runs, and the whole schedule is visible at a glance.
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On this page
How a Gantt chart works
A Gantt chart, named after the engineer Henry Gantt, who popularized it in the 1910s, shows a project as bars on a timeline. Each task is a row. Its bar starts in the period the task starts and ends in the period it finishes. Reading down the chart you see what happens when, which tasks overlap, and which have to finish before others can start.
On paper the bars are shaded cells. Shade lightly in pencil while you plan, then darken the cells, or fill them in as the work is done to track progress.
What prints
The page is landscape. The heading reads Gantt Chart, with lines for the project, the start date and the project lead. On the left is a task table with Task, Owner, Start and End columns. To the right is the timeline grid: one column per period, numbered W1, W2 and so on for weeks (D for days, M for months), with every other column shaded so you can follow it down the page.
The settings
- Time scale. Days for a short project such as an event or a sprint, weeks for most projects, months for a year plan.
- Number of periods. 6 to 31. Thirty-one days fit a month; twelve weeks fit a quarter; twelve months fit a year.
- Task rows. 8 to 30.
- Owner and dates columns. Turn off for a simpler chart with a wider task column.
Write the date of the first period on the Start date line, and the numbered columns count from it.
Worked example: moving an office
A team plans an office move over 8 weeks. The rows read: "Choose movers, Dana, W1, W2", "Floor plan and seating, Lee, W1, W3", "Order furniture, Lee, W3, W6", "IT: network at new site, Ari, W4, W7", "Pack and label, everyone, W7, W8" and "Move day, Dana, W8, W8".
Shading the cells shows that furniture and the network both run through week 6, the busiest week, and that everything else waits on the floor plan finishing in week 3. Move day is a single cell, marked with a diamond as a milestone.
Keep it current
Pin the chart up where the team will see it, and mark completed cells as work finishes. When a task slips, redraw its bar and look at which tasks below it move too.
Sources
- Gantt.com: What is a Gantt chart? gantt.com