Gantt chart template for Excel

What is a Gantt chart?

A Gantt chart is a schedule drawn as a timeline. Every task is a bar: where the bar starts, the task starts, and its length is how long it takes. Stacked on top of each other, the bars show in one picture which tasks run at the same time, what comes after what, and when the project ends.

What sets it apart from a task list or a weekly plan is order. In a Gantt chart tasks hang together: the design only starts once the proposal is approved, the build-out only after the client's feedback. Those dependencies are what make the chart worth having. They show what happens when one task runs late.

Why make a Gantt chart in Excel?

Drawing a Gantt chart by hand, colouring cells day by day, takes an hour and is out of date after the first change. This template does the arithmetic. For each task you fill in which task it follows and how many work days it takes. The start and end dates follow, weekends are skipped, and the bars colour themselves in.

Excel is a good fit when one person keeps the plan: everyone can open the file, your client doesn't need to install anything, and you stay in full control of the layout.

How to read a Gantt chart

Read left to right and top to bottom. Time runs along the top, here one column per work day with the date above each Monday. Each row is a task. A light bar is planned, a dark bar is in progress, a grey bar is done. An orange square is a milestone: a moment with no duration, like a delivery or a sign-off.

Pay most attention to the tasks that follow straight on from each other. Together they form the critical path: the longest chain of tasks waiting on one another. If one task on that path slips a day, the end date of the whole project slips a day. Tasks off that path have slack.

How to make a Gantt chart in Excel, step by step

Start with a list of every task in the order the work happens, and number them. Then fill in, for each task, the task it waits for. Most tasks have one; the first tasks of the project have none and start on the start date.

Next, estimate each duration in work days. Be honest: don't count the hours of work, count the days until the task is done, waiting on others included. A four-hour task that waits two days for feedback takes three days.

Some tasks don't wait for another task but for a date: a client who can only send copy after a holiday, a supplier with a fixed lead time. That's what the Not before column is for. The task then starts on that date or after its predecessor, whichever comes later.

When do you need dependencies?

Not every project needs a Gantt chart. If one person does everything in sequence, a simple weekly plan does the job. Dependencies start to pay off once several people work on the same project and wait on each other: a designer waiting on the copywriter, a developer waiting on the design, a client who has to approve before anyone can go on.

In client work the delay rarely sits in the work itself. It sits in the waiting: for feedback, for material, for a decision. A Gantt chart makes that waiting visible, and lets you plan for it.

Take the example in the template: the client can only deliver copy from November 16. The sheet schedules that task from November 16 to 20, and you can see at once that it's done before the build-out starts on November 24. If the client needs another week, change only that date and check whether it still fits.

Common mistakes

1. Linking everything to everything: only link tasks that really wait on each other, or the slack disappears from your plan.
2. Calendar days instead of work days: a ten-day task that runs over a weekend isn't ten work days.
3. No milestones: without a delivery or sign-off as a fixed point, nobody knows what the plan works towards.
4. Forgetting the client: feedback and approval are tasks with a duration, just like the work.
5. Not updating it after the start: a Gantt chart that no longer matches reality is worse than no plan at all.

How to keep the chart up to date

Update it once a week. Mark finished tasks as done, change the duration of tasks that overrun and see what happens to the end date. Because the dates follow from the predecessors, you only change the task that moved: everything waiting on it moves along. Today's column is highlighted, so you can see straight away what should be running now.

When a spreadsheet Gantt chart stops being enough

The template works as long as one person keeps the file. Once several people change the plan, copies start to drift apart, and letting a client look along means emailing a file that's out of date tomorrow. In Torvany everyone works in the same plan. On the board every card shows whether it's blocked by another task, on the free plan too. The timeline with dependencies is part of Pro, which you can try free for 14 days.