This is the sixth in a series of tips on different chart types. The idea is to fill up your toolbox with different charts to make better sense of data. This week, I give you the gantt chart.
Active Ingredients (What is a gantt chart?)
A gantt chart shows the start and end date of a list of activities or tasks. Each row represents a task and each column represents a time period. Here is a gantt chart I made for Thanksgiving. In this case, the tasks are dishes. I used color to show different stages (preparation, cooking, refrigeration, and reheating) for each dish.
Here’s a gantt chart that may be closer to something you’d want to create for your organization:
Uses
Gantt charts provide a great way to show the different components or tasks in a project or program, how long each task is going to take, which tasks precede or follow others, and which tasks occur simultaneously. In the Thanksgiving chart, I was particularly interested in which dishes would be cooking at the same time since I have limited space in my oven. Similarly, a gantt chart can clarify if you have enough staff and other resources to conduct simultaneous tasks. You might consider adding a reference line to show the current date, shading portions of the bars to show what is completed and what is left to do, or adding arrows to show which tasks are dependent on each other.
Warnings
As with so many chart types, they can get overly complex and difficult to read. So keep the overall gantt chart simple to give a view of the entire project. If you need to show more detail, you can make related charts that zoom in on subtasks for each of the major tasks on the overall chart. Also, remember to update your gantt chart as timelines and tasks change.
Fun Fact
The gantt chart is named for its inventor, Henry Laurence Gantt, a disciple of Frederick Taylor, the great promoter of scientific management in the early 20th century.
To see past data tips, including those about other chart types, click HERE.
Let’s talk about YOUR data!
Got the feeling that you and your colleagues would use your data more effectively if you could see it better? Data Viz for Nonprofits (DVN) can help you get the ball rolling with an interactive data dashboard and beautiful charts, maps, and graphs for your next presentation, report, proposal, or webpage. Through a short-term consultation, we can help you to clarify the questions you want to answer and goals you want to track. DVN then visualizes your data to address those questions and track those goals.