Gantt Chart

A Gantt Chart is a visual project management tool displaying tasks, durations, dependencies, and timeline on a horizontal bar chart. Each task appears as a bar spanning its scheduled duration, with dependencies shown through connecting lines. This format provides clear overview of project schedule, resource allocation, and progress. Gantt charts originated in early twentieth century manufacturing, becoming standard in waterfall project management. They show task names, start and end dates, duration, dependencies between tasks, progress completion, milestones, and resource assignments. The visualization helps teams understand project timeline, identify critical path, coordinate dependencies, track progress against plan, and communicate schedule to stakeholders. Gantt charts work well for projects with fixed scope, known dependencies, sequential workflows, resource constraints, and stakeholder communication needs. However, they have significant limitations in agile environments: they assume predictable work contradicting agile uncertainty, emphasize task completion over value delivery, become outdated quickly as plans change, create false sense of precision, and focus on outputs not outcomes. Many agile teams avoid Gantt charts, preferring roadmaps showing goals and themes, burndown charts tracking sprint progress, or Kanban boards visualizing workflow. That said, Gantt charts remain useful for certain scenarios: coordinating multiple team dependencies, planning infrastructure or operational projects, communicating with stakeholders expecting traditional formats, or managing waterfall components within broader agile context. Product managers should understand Gantt charts for stakeholder communication but avoid letting them drive agile development. When needed, use them at high level for milestones and dependencies rather than detailed task tracking. Focus on outcomes and flexibility over rigid plans.