GanttCharts.net1. Know what’s going on in your projects
The biggest advantage of using free online Gantt charts in project management is that you get to see everything related to project at a single place. It acts as a great visualization and prioritization tool as it provides the total overview of the project and tells you about the critical information such as members involved in each step, the order of tasks, duration, start-to-end dates, task dependencies and progress made in them. Hence, online Gantt charts software are helpful in equipping project managers with the information they need to oversee while managing projects.
2. Improved communication and team cohesion
Communication is an integral part of a project that can make or break it. In fact, 86% of employees feel lack of communication as the biggest reason for workplace failures. On the other hand, Gantt charts are known to provide crystal clear communication. Project managers can use these charts to know who is working on what and give inputs on certain tasks and pass relevant information to them. This helps him to communicate better with team members and also improves their relationship as a team. Most importantly, it eliminates the need for having a separate tool for tracking and communication purposes.
3. Avoid resource overload
Too many problems arise when resources are stretched over too many tasks and processes. Gantt charts allow you to use your resources effectively as you get to see a project’s timeline where you can easily see how and where resources are being utilized. Within Gantt charts, you can also delegate tasks and align resources without burdening them with too much work. This way you can effectively manage resources and when resources are properly managed, projects are more likely to be completed within budget and deadlines.
4. Measure the progress of projects
Once you schedule your project in a Gantt chart software you can check the progress of the projects in it. The feature to measure a project’s progress enables you to make changes in your strategy if it is lagging behind its schedule. As project members can update the completed percent of each task, everyone stays on the same page. This information is quite useful to determine if the project is headed in the right direction or not.
5. See overlapping activities and task dependencies
At times, you cannot start a certain task unless another task which is dependent on the former is completed. Such task dependencies can make things difficult to be managed especially in case of complex projects that have too many tasks. As you get to see an overview of projects in a Gantt chart software, you can easily see which tasks are dependent on each other and schedule them in a way that they don’t impact the overall progress in any way and team members share equal responsibility.
6. More clarity
It’s not a good feeling when you get stuck in a project and you don’t know where things are going. Although it’s quite common to get stuck while working on a project, however, Gantt charts let you see things with a lot more clarity with just a click. As you can instantly see the progress of tasks, it helps you and others working on a project to develop a better understanding of how things are unfolding. More clarity means better understanding which further leads to successful completion of a project.
7. Better time management
Many project managers pitch scheduling as one of the biggest benefits of Gantt charts in project management. As time plays an important role in the life of a project, therefore a Gantt chart software helps project members to understand the severity of time delays while managing projects. It’s easy to get carried away and work mindlessly on tasks but when you have a unified view of the overall progress, you can easily allocate time to each and every task and do what really needs to be done.
