The best way to Create Gantt Charts in Excel

What are Gantt charts?

On the left-hand facet, the Y-axis of the chart lists particular actions. On the prime, the X-axis of the chart exhibits time.

There’s no fastened unit for time — it could possibly be measured in weeks, days, hours, or minutes, relying on the duties you’re monitoring. In Excel, every process will get its personal row.

As you’ll be able to see within the instance above from Microsoft, process 1 begins at time unit 0 and runs till simply earlier than process 2, which proceeds till process 3 begins.

It’s value noting that duties can overlap — the aim of the Gantt chart isn’t to find out the order of duties however to supply a simple strategy to see what’s taking place, when, and what number of processes are taking place without delay.

The Advantages of Gantt Charts

Gantt charts supply a number of advantages, together with the next.

At-a-Look Venture Development

Gantt charts allow you to see when initiatives started, how far alongside they’re, in the event that they’re reached particular milestones, and in the event that they overlap with different initiatives.

This makes it doable to raised perceive how lengthy processes will take and if concurrent processes might trigger friction.

Actionable Perception

These charts additionally present actionable perception for mission administration employees. As a result of groups can see mission begin dates and timelines at-a-glance, they will pinpoint potential bottlenecks and make modifications.

In apply, groups may uncover that three processes are attributable to begin on the identical day. By staggering begin dates barely, they will keep away from doable efficiency points.

Improved Time Administration

Take into account a Gantt chart displaying a number of duties with the identical begin date and staff liable for them. If left alone, this mission framework might waste time, as one staff is overworked, and others might not have sufficient on their plate.

A greater understanding of what’s taking place, when, and why may help firms enhance their time administration.

Diminished Threat of Useful resource Overload

Tasks share a pool of finite sources. The extra initiatives taking place concurrently, the larger the useful resource drain and the higher the chance of useful resource overload.

Gantt charts supply a strategy to examine course of useful resource wants and make changes that assist preserve initiatives on monitor.

Whereas each Gantt chart differs, frequent options embody process, taskbars, and milestones due dates. Charts might also embody sub-task bars or use bar shading to point how far a process has progressed.

The best way to Create Gantt Charts in Excel

Regardless of their usefulness and ubiquity, Gantt charts don’t have a built-in template in Excel. Because of this, customers have to both obtain a pre-built Gantt chart or construct their very own.

Right here’s a step-by-step information to making a Gantt chart in Excel.

1. Enter your mission information.

Step one in making a Gantt chart is coming into mission information right into a typical Excel spreadsheet. In our instance, we’ll enter three information columns: Job Identify, Begin on Day, and Length. The end result ought to look one thing like this.

2. Make a stacked bar chart.

Subsequent, we’re going to create a stacked bar chart. To do that, choose the info within the Begin on Day column (with the header). Then, underneath “Insert,” choose “Bar Chart”, then “2-D Bar”, then “Stacked Bar” to get this.

3. Enter your period information.

To enter period information:

• Begin by right-clicking on the chart.
• Select “Choose Information.” This may open a “Choose information supply” window containing the “Begin on Day” collection.
• Click on the “Add” Button underneath “Legend entries (collection),” then title your new collection Length.

Now, click on the icon subsequent to the place it says “Sequence values,” which can open a brand new “Edit collection” window.

Choose the info out of your Length column (with out the header) and your Begin On Day column, then click on OK to shut the window, and click on OK once more so as to add the collection to your chart.

4. Add your process descriptions.

Now we’re going so as to add process descriptions. This begins the identical approach because the final step: Proper-click in your chart to open the “Choose information supply” window, then choose “Begin On Day” within the left-hand “Sequence” checklist.

Subsequent, choose “Edit” on the correct “Class” checklist. This may open an “Axis labels” window. Choose the cells in your Job column, then click on OK on the “Axis labels” window, then OK on the “Choose information supply” window.

4. Repair the Order

Lastly, we’re going to repair the order of our duties. To do that, right-click on the checklist of Duties on the left facet of the chart to open a menu, then click on “Format Axis.” From this menu, underneath “Axis Place,” examine the “classes in reverse order” field.

And there you could have it — a custom-built Gantt chart in Excel.

Gantt Chart Examples

In the event you choose to obtain an present template, there are a number of Gantt choices within the Microsoft chart templates database. Some nice Gantt examples embody: