Gantt charts have been a core project management tool ever since their invention by Henry Gantt in the 1910s.

Having been around for over 100 years, Gantt charts remain a foundational project management tool for today’s project managers.

In this post I will explain how to create Gantt charts and provide examples, based on my own experience, of how they can be used to support legal service work.

 

What are Gantt charts?

Gantt charts are graphical representations of project schedules.

They list project tasks vertically and in sequence.

The tasks are then represented as blocks against a timeline on the horizontal axis.

An excerpt from a Gantt chart I have created is given below.

Why I love Gantt charts (and why you should too)

I love Gantt charts, and I created them on every project I ran when I was a full-time project manager working in the legal service industry.

I found Gantt charts useful because, for example, they allowed me to

• Produce high level project plans quickly
• Develop those plans in greater detail as the project gathered pace
• Remind project teams about issues, delays and upcoming tasks and
• When presented at the most appropriate level of detail for the audience concerned, they were great communication tools.

Gantt charts can help plan and deliver any project found in legal services, whether the project be a legal matter or a process improvement project.

 

Timeline Impact

I always found the most useful aspect of a Gantt chart was the impact the timeline had on project stakeholders.

Almost every time I have done a first draft of a Gantt chart the reaction has been the same:

We don’t have as much time as we thought we did for this project!

This realisation is a great incentive for refining the project schedule (see below).

In some cases it also led to constructive discussions about project scope.  Sometimes it is simply not possible to achieve all a project’s objectives given real-world constraints of time, resources and cost.  Senior stakeholders could see this on the timeline, which then provided a solid foundation for further discussion about project scope.

This is why I encourage everyone running a project to create a Gantt chart: a good Gantt chart injects a strong dose of reality when stakeholders see the draft timeline for the first time.

 

Creating a Gantt Chart

Consider the Project Schedule

Gantt charts are visual representations of project schedules.

Before diving straight in to create the visual representation, take some time to consider your outline schedule.

At this stage you need not consider the detailed timeline – that will come later.

What you are doing here is creating a high-level sequence of events.

 

Create the Project Schedule

To create a schedule:

1. Break project into phases.
2. Identify deliverables required from each phase.
3. Arrange the deliverables in sequence.
4. Identify work required to produce these deliverables.
5. Break the work down into tasks.
6. Identify dependencies between tasks and activities.
7. Nominate key events as milestones.
8. Assign resources (the most important of which are people) required to complete the tasks.

 

Create a basic Gantt chart representing the project schedule.

Here is how you build your Gantt chart, the visual representation of the schedule:

1. List all tasks (grouped into their phases) sequentially in a column (the left most column) of a grid.
2. Enter the start date of each task. For the first pass Gantt chart, assume that all tasks will be run in simple sequence, with one task starting when the preceding task in the sequence has finished.
3. Enter the duration of each task. This will be an estimate of the time required to complete the task.  When, according to your plan a task should be completed, this will be the task end date.
4. Assign resources to each task (see above).

At this point, you should have a nice straightforward Gantt chart, with all the tasks running in sequence.  You will probably find you have a long project on your hands!

Now it is time to refine the Gantt chart to make it more realistic, remembering the classic constraints of time, cost and resources.

 

Refining the Gantt chart

One of the greatest benefits of having Gantt charts created with good Gantt chart software (see below), is that the software allows for quick and easy ‘what-if’ analysis.

Some easy things to look out for and do when refining an early draft Gantt chart.

1. Look for dependencies between tasks (i.e. if task B can only start when task A has finished, there is a dependency between these two tasks). Link the dependent tasks.
2. Look for where you can run tasks in parallel. These tasks will not have a dependency relationship and will not require using the same resource at the same time.  Running tasks in parallel helps shorten the time it will take to complete the project.
3. See if you can re-assign resources to ensure you get the most out of your project delivery team, remembering project constraints and requirements (particularly client requirements).
4. Highlight tasks which you think present an operational risk such as, for example, if the tasks require access to scarce legal expertise. Highlighting serves as a reminder to pay close attention to these tasks during project delivery.
5. If not done so already, add in reasonable amount of contingency time, especially for those tasks you have identified as being high risk tasks.

 

 

Software tools for creating Gantt Charts

It is possible, as Henry Gantt and others must have done before computer software arrived, to create Gantt charts by hand using pen and paper.  But this must have been time consuming and a significant obstacle to doing frequent re-planning and what-if analysis.

Today there is a lot of software available to help with Gantt chart creation.  Here is a short list of some of the software concerned.

 

Microsoft Excel

You could use Microsoft Excel, using vertical cells to list tasks and horizontal cells to represent task duration.  Personally, I have found that Excel is not well suited for Gantt chart creation, as updating task cells can soon become almost as time-consuming and tedious as using pen and paper.  However, there are some customized versions of Excel which help with producing Gantt charts, and you may find these useful.

 

Smartsheet

If you like starting with Excel like capability, then you might want to look at Smartsheet.

Smartsheet is now a comprehensive cloud based project management tool, which includes Gantt chart creation.  I know of some legal project management teams in law firms which use Smartsheet.

 

Microsoft Project

During my career as a hands-on project manager, I used Microsoft Project daily.  It is great software allowing for the creation of detailed Gantt charts.

However, the depth of its functionality can be off-putting for some people.  For example, when I used Microsoft Project a lot, I knew that whenever I created a new Gantt chart the software would immediately start making assumptions in the background.  Not all the assumptions were relevant or useful, which meant that I needed to spend more time than I would have liked configuring each new project to better reflect reality.

 

Microsoft Project Planner

A simpler tool is Microsoft Project Planner.

Project Planner comes with Office 365 for business subscriptions, and it can be used from within Microsoft Teams and SharePoint.  It is much simpler to use than Microsoft Project and for many it may be the most obvious place to start creating Gantt charts.

 

Instagantt

Instagantt is cloud-based software designed only to create Gantt charts.  I enjoy using Instagantt.  It is intuitive and easy to use.  Its focus solely on Gantt chart creation means I don’t feel overwhelmed by lots of other functionality which I am unlikely to need.

 

HighQ

You may also have software where Gantt chart functionality is included, even if the software itself is not aimed directly at Gantt chart creation as such.

For example, HighQ (which is used by a lot of law firms in the U.K.) can represent project tasks in several ways, including a Timeline (Gantt chart) view.

 

Planning Blox

Planning Blox is aimed at legal project managers and legal project management teams.  It has a lot of detailed functionality, including representations of project tasks in Gantt chart views.

How I have used Gantt Charts for legal service work

Here are examples of how I have used Gantt charts for legal service work.  As with so much of this article, these examples are illustrative not exhaustive.

Legal Process Improvement initiatives

Whatever the nature of the process improvement initiative, in my experience it’s essential to convert the ‘initiative’ into a ‘project’.  If not, the risk of wasting time and resources increases exponentially.

A Gantt chart is only one part of this conversion, but it is a powerful tool to use as it sets out clearly who is expected to be doing what and when.

Legal Matters

Gantt charts can help plan and manage any legal matter, and I found that construction litigation lawyers particularly appreciated them.

Gantt charts representing legal matters soon became a useful client communication tool.  This is hardly surprising, since most construction clients are familiar with Gantt charts as used in the construction industry.

Some Gantt charts I created represented a high-level view of the construction timeline, overlayed with notes and annotations about what parties did, sometimes cross-referencing contractual provisions.  This let people easily cross refer what happened on the ground with legal obligations affecting the parties.

Other Gantt charts set out the expected timeline of the litigation (or arbitration) process.  These Gantt charts also tracked and projected client costs accruing as the litigation / arbitration process progressed.

Gantt charts can be used for so much more

This post gives you an idea about how useful Gantt charts are when planning projects.

Gantt charts are also very useful tools for tracking and reporting project progress, and I will discuss this in a later post.

Some people may consider Gantt charts to be old fashioned and limited to more traditional (Predictive) project management methods.  I disagree.  Gantt charts can also be used to great effect in context of modern (Adaptive) project management methods.  I will also explain this in a later post.

 

Developing your Gantt chart skills

If you would like to find out more about creating and using Gantt charts in legal service environments, please sign up for one of my public legal project management or legal process improvement training and certification courses.

Even if you decide not to sign up for one of my courses, I hope you will find time to consider using Gantt charts as part of your project planning.