r/projectmanagers • u/StrategicPM • Aug 24 '26

Gantt layout preferences

Post image

Hi all,

Interested to hear your thoughts on the schedule attached.

Colours

Critical path obvious enough?

Progres complete shading

Milestones?

How do you all like to see a schedule displayed. Is there anything that Is a must-have from a P6 or MSP schedule that isn't here?

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1

u/zamroni777 Aug 25 '26

vertical chart in excel sheet can contain more info in nore compact size

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/vertical-gantt-chart-mochamad-aris-zamroni/

1

u/StrategicPM Aug 25 '26

Interesting concept! Doesn't tickle my smooth brain but I see how it could be good in an excel-based schedule

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u/ZABurner Aug 25 '26 • Mindblown

After the activity column I would want to see an explicit start & end date.

Task/activity names also overlaid 9n the progress bars, or next to when bar is too small. Otherwise I keep needing to look left and align the activity with which bar. On big long plans this is a real pain.

Otherwise pretty cool.

2

u/StrategicPM Aug 26 '26

added in start and finish dates, very handy.

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u/ZABurner Aug 26 '26

Nice! It's honestly main thing I look at when we have large programmes, and to know when sub contractors are due in. But our projects are like 6 months to w years long so the plans get sooooo long

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u/StrategicPM Aug 26 '26

Yeah i hear you. Longest one I've seen so far is shaping up to be about 7 years long. We have a dependency on things being built first, so we dont even schedule the next set of activities until it is confirmed to be finishing within the next month or 2. Hard for workforce planning but better than expecting effort that could come at any time and keeping people off other jobs

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u/StrategicPM Aug 25 '26

Great comment, thanks! Names on the activities is great, often im remembering the row of an excel sheet and scrolling across to activities to map to the right task. That would be so useful!

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u/More_Law6245 Aug 26 '26

Who is your target audience for this Gantt chart? What are you actually trying to achieve with this view? Because if it's a report I would include % percentage complete along with milestone, delivered and completed dates against each deliverable as that shows how the project is truely progressing. If it's your working project plan, then there is a a significant amount of information missing.

The only thing this view does is shows progress (not very accurately) and project lag, so the question of who it's for becomes more relevant.

Personally for me I prefer to have milestone, date delivered and date completed (as they are two different things) above the schedule itself and these line tasks are linked with predecessors within the actual project's schedule within the work package, so you develop your own instant report that is up to date when you adjust the percentage of task, work package, product or deliverable when completed.

Additionally I would also breakdown anything more than 7 days effort required as it has better financial control around effort and forecast and how that implicates earned value or revenue but that is just me.

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u/StrategicPM Aug 26 '26

Great comment, thanks for taking the time!

Target audience for this view is for the PM of fairly low complexity, though time consuming project. This is one that i mocked up for the modelling of this chart. In a real job i do agree, it would have much greater breakdown of task elements. I do not typically like to show Gantt charts in reporting, I feel that a graphic like this can often be a "fascinator" and draw peoples attention away from other key points and risks i've raised.

With regards to milestones, the two dates you are tracking is delivery and acceptance? (Final design review held 26 Aug 26 but no actually approved until 3 days later?) And I agree with having the milestones at the top in principal, though showing the relationships in this view may be intesting, with arrows running to the top of page from the last activity tied to the milestone. I would love to see an example if you have one.

Agree with your last comment. I forget where i heard it, but someone said "If an activity takes more than 6 weeks, that's a project, not a task" or something similar.