Gantt chart

What is a Gantt chart?

A Gantt chart is a bar chart that displays a project’s time axis horizontally and a task list vertically. Each task is represented by a coloured bar whose length corresponds to the planned duration, with the start and end positions indicating the timing. Dependency arrows are drawn between tasks (finish-to-start, start-to-start, and others).

The method was popularised in the 1910s by Henry Gantt, but its modern form has been extended to include the critical path (the longest sequence of dependent tasks — it determines the minimum project duration), buffers, milestones, and resource assignments. In a construction company a Gantt chart shows the schedule for building a residential block; in a software integrator it shows an ERP implementation plan; in manufacturing it shows the schedule for a large customer order across workshops.

When it is used

A Gantt chart is most powerful where tasks are interdependent and where the plan needs to be communicated clearly to stakeholders — construction, engineering, implementation projects, events. For continuous operational flows, Kanban is more appropriate.

See the Planning module and the construction industry page.

Related terms

• WBS — hierarchical project breakdown that is the input for a Gantt chart. See /en/glossary/wbs.
• Kanban — an alternative visualisation without a time axis. See /en/glossary/kanban.
• S&OP — a planning process whose outputs are displayed in Gantt. See /en/glossary/s-and-op.

In Modulario

The Planning module in Modulario provides an interactive Gantt chart with drag-and-drop task editing, critical path calculation, and resource linkage (people, machines). Changes in the Gantt chart automatically flow through to the Production module and notify those responsible via Workflows.

The Gantt chart in Modulario supports baselines (comparing planned vs. actual progress), multiple task hierarchies, and colour-coded status (planned, in progress, delayed, completed). When the duration of one task changes, the system automatically recalculates the deadlines for all downstream tasks based on defined dependencies — a project manager immediately sees the impact on the final delivery date and any risks.

For projects with more than 50 tasks, Gantt management is supplemented by a combination of task lists, Kanban or burndown charts. Modern tools can generate all three views from the same data, so a manager sees the plan in whichever view is most useful at any given time.