Gantt Chart – Project Management Tool Inside Kanban App

With the right Gantt chart, project management becomes a whole lot easier. While similar charts were already in use on construction projects in Germany and by engineer Karol Adamiecki in Poland, it was Henry Gantt who brought them to widespread attention elsewhere at the start of the 20th century.

These days, we have come a long way since those first hand-drawn charts that Gantt introduced to the rest of the world as a new kind of project management tool. It is now possible to use the latest technology to draw up and make changes to any sort of project plan with absolutely no hassle. What does this mean for you and your projects, though?

There are numerous different ways of using Gantt charts now. Perhaps the simplest of these is to just set up a spreadsheet on the likes of Excel. This gives a fundamental type of Gantt chart without any extra features.

The main problem with this approach is that it makes life more difficult when it comes to making changes. Other options on the market give you more than just a basic Gantt chart.

The extra functionality included could mean that you may get a cloud-based solution, easy import/export options, powerful filters and dashboard reports, among other things. As technology improves, we are finding that even more complete Gantt chart software becomes available. You can now share a tool like this with colleagues all around the planet and make complex changes with a single click. All this means that it is easier than ever before to use Gantt charts. Yet, the fact that there is so much choice around can make it difficult to know exactly which one to choose.

So, how can you decide which of the possible solutions is right for your team? Do you choose the one with most functions or the one that looks easiest to use? Maybe there is some other factor that you need to take into account?

Of course, not every one of the extra functions is going to be necessary for every project that you manage. Sometimes the simple approach may be fine, while in others case you might need a more flexible Gantt chart tool to help you out. Therefore, you can get started by considering the types of project that you usually manage.

If you typically run big, complex projects then you will probably want to get the most complete, versatile software that you can find. On the other hand, if you usually run smaller, simpler projects, then you may feel that the top-end solutions are too complicated and include features that you don’t really need.

A sensible approach would be to think about the most complicated project that you have ever handled for your company. If the software would be capable of handling this, then it is probably going to be able to handle anything else that you throw at it in the future.

It is also worth thinking about the unique demands of your own team. Do you have people working across the globe or is there a big gap in skill and experience levels across the organisation? Each team is different, and you need to work out which sort of software would be ideal for yours.

There is no doubt that learning to use the most complete project management tools can also help to develop the skills and confidence of the team members. If they can use the tools with most functions, then they will feel comfortable using any other, simpler software of this type later on, which isn’t always right the other way round.