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by Diana Ramos on Feb 20, 2019
- Free Gantt Charts For Beginners
- Best Free Gantt Chart Template Excel
- Gantt Chart From Excel Spreadsheet
- Best Free Gantt Chart Template
- Blank Gantt Chart Template Excel
In this article, we’ve researched, collected, and formatted the most efficient Gantt chart templates for easy download and use in Microsoft Excel, versions 2000 and up. From simple to complex Gantt charts for a variety of use cases and industries, you are bound to find a Gantt chart template that helps you manage your project.
You'll find a variety of Gantt chart templates on this page, including a simple Gantt chart template, a Gantt chart with dependencies template, a construction Gantt chart template, and an IT project Gantt chart template.
See how easy it is to create a Gantt chart in Smartsheet
Gantt charts are fast and easy to create in Smartsheet in just two steps.
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A new Gantt Chart slide will be instantly generated in PowerPoint. Depending on the template used and the styling choices you make, you can get a Gantt chart slide similar to this: Once you’ve generated your Gantt chart, you can restyle or update it automatically with Office Timeline Plus. You can add or edit data at any time, change fonts. With the privilege, free Gantt chart template PowerPoint, the venture chief can decide the specific time required to complete each segment of the undertaking. There are various reasons why an undertaking director should utilize a free Gantt chart template PowerPoint, and they incorporate a Gantt diagram layout PowerPoint.
Simple Gantt Chart Template
Organize and track simple projects or timelines, like personal objectives or short team projects, with this simple Gantt chart template. To get started, simply input your task data, like start and end dates and duration times, into the chart to create a high-level visual overview of your project on a predetermined timeline. View your project tasks visually with the task bars, which you can change based on individual task timelines and durations.
Download Simple Gantt Chart Template
Excel 2000-2004 | Excel 2007-2016 | Smartsheet
For an easy, step-by-step tutorial on creating a simple Gantt chart using a preformatted Excel template, watch this quick video.
If you're looking for more information about how to create a Gantt chart in Excel using a template, additional steps to customize your Gantt chart, or related project management resources and methodologies, visit this article.
For more information on what a Gantt chart is, who uses a Gantt chart, the features of a Gantt chart, and the benefits of leveraging a Gantt chart in your project, visit Guide to Gantt Charts.
Gantt Chart with Dependencies Template
Manage complex projects — or better organize multiple projects simultaneously — with this detailed Gantt chart template. This template allows you to track phases, milestones, tasks, and subtasks, giving you an updated visual of your project that you can easily share with other team members or key stakeholders. Plot dependencies directly on the chart to see what tasks must be completed for others to begin, and see how delays will impact schedules or deadlines. Use the Gantt chart to enter the corresponding work breakdown structure (WBS), if you are leveraging one for your project.
Download Gantt Chart with Dependencies Template
Excel 2000-2004 | Excel 2007-2016 | Smartsheet
Task List Template
Use this task list template to track tasks, assess task durations, and gain a visual, at-a-glance overview of everything you need to do. Divide tasks by phases or type of work, identify dependencies, and prioritize task completion based on timelines and resources to ensure you can complete all tasks in a timely fashion.
Download Task List Template
Excel 2000-2004 | Excel 2007-2016 | PowerPoint | Smartsheet
Project Tracker Template
Manage all your project details and view progress with this project tracker template. Document all your project details in this comprehensive template, like tasks, task status, deliverables, deadlines, budget, and more. Keep everything organized and facilitate collaboration and visibility among team members and key stakeholders with this helpful template.
Download Project Tracking Template
Excel 2000-2004 | Excel 2007-2016 | Smartsheet
Portfolio Planning Template
Track the key details of your project, report on budget versus actual spend, and track percentage of tasks complete with the portfolio planning template. Use this template to document every component of your project, from individual tasks to overall priority level, in one centralized location, ensuring that all details are highly visible across team members and key stakeholders, and that no detail is missed.
Download Portfolio Planning Template
Excel 2000-2004 | Excel 2007-2016
Strategic Planning Template
Start your strategic planning process off on the right foot with this comprehensive strategic planning template. Highlight strategic goals and tasks, assign team members to individual project objectives, and determine your project’s critical path to ensure you hit key targets and land projects on time. Use this template to present on the overall project summary, and collaborate with key stakeholders to gain buy in.
Download Strategic Planning Template
Excel 2000-2004 | Excel 2007-2016 | PowerPoint | Smartsheet
Daily Schedule Template
Use this daily schedule template to organize your everyday tasks and prioritize your day. With space to document each specific task or goal by the time, manage overall daily objectives, and note any comments directly within the template, you will maximize your daily potential and ensure you complete all tasks that you allotted for any given day of the week.
Download Daily Schedule Template
Excel 2000-2004 | Excel 2007-2016
Construction Gantt Chart Template
Construction projects are time sensitive and must strictly adhere to their timelines in order to meet their deadlines and abide by their contracts. Use this construction Gantt chart template to ensure that no task is overlooked or delayed to ensure all projects land on time and on budget. Input all your construction-related tasks, start and end dates, and durations in the timeline. View these dates in the Gantt chart to track how the project is progressing, and to mitigate any potential risks.
Download Construction Gantt Chart Template
Excel 2000-2004 | Excel 2007-2016 | Smartsheet
IT Project Gantt Chart Template
Use this Gantt chart template designed specifically for IT projects to manage tasks, allocate resources, and ensure you are able to complete all essential deliverables in a timely manner. Track tasks against timelines, assign tasks to specific team members or departments, and set milestones so you are aware of how a project is progressing. This template is helpful for a variety of IT-focused projects, like software development, product launches, and upgrades and installations.
Download IT Project Gantt Chart Template
Excel 2000-2004 | Excel 2007-2016
Scrum Project Management Gantt Chart Template
Free Gantt Charts For Beginners
![Gantt Gantt](https://www.geckoandfly.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/free-project-timeline-template-21-830x327.jpg)
For all your software development project needs, use this Scrum project management Gantt chart template to track and manage your Scrum projects more precisely. Set sprint start and end dates, assign tasks, plot milestones, and outline specific deliverables all within this preformatted template. Use the burndown chart functionality to assess the amount of work your whole team must work towards in order to complete a sprint.
Download Scrum Project Management Gantt Chart Template
Excel 2000-2004 | Excel 2007-2016
Agile Project Plan Template
With this Agile project template, you can track project schedules, task durations, and sprints in an easy, visual way. Document each part of your fluid Agile project to stay on top of changes and manage timelines and resources accordingly, ensuring you can keep up with the changing nature of Agile projects while also allocating tasks effectively. Encourage communication with this visual, at-a-glance project plan specifically designed for Agile projects, including those for software development and IT.
Download Agile Project Plan Template
Excel 2000-2004 | Excel 2007-2016 | Smartsheet
Agile Release Plan Template
Outline all your project tasks, assign tasks to a specific sprint, and determine approximate task durations with this Agile release plan template. Manage each task from start date to end date, and handle all schedule and resource changes with ease with a visual and easy-to-adjust overview of your Agile project. Update task status to track how the project is progressing and ensure your project stays within the predetermined timeline.
Download Agile Release Plan Template
Excel 2000-2004 | Excel 2007-2016 | Smartsheet
School Assignment Gantt Chart Template
Gantt charts can also be used for more personal purposes, like keeping track of academic schedules and assignments. Use this school assignment Gantt chart template to organize your school work and manage dates of papers, tests, projects, and other academic-related deadlines. With space to fill in dates of assignments and the estimated duration of each task, you will eliminate the overwhelming feeling that comes with school assignments.
Download School Assignment Gantt Chart Template
Excel 2000-2004 | Excel 2007-2016
For additional downloadable resources, check out our free MS PowerPoint Gantt Chart templates.
Related Project Management Methodologies
Gantt, as a project management methodology, is an extremely effective way to manage, track, and report on projects. Additionally, there are several other methodologies used across fields that you can leverage. These project management methodologies include:
- Agile: A fluid, adaptable project management approach, most commonly used in software development, in which goals, tasks, and objectives are based around a communicative and changing approach that adapts to the way the project is progressing.
- Scrum: A methodology of the Agile framework in which projects are broken down into shorter sprints that lead to a larger overall goal.
- Kanban: A project management method used in Agile projects in which visual, moveable cards are used to organize, prioritize, and track tasks.
- Waterfall: A popular methodology used for software engineering and IT projects, waterfall moves through projects in a sequential, linear process, resembling a waterfall.
For a brief overview of each project management methodology, as well as a comparison between all three, visit our Agile vs. Scrum vs. Waterfall vs. Kanban article.
Improve Project Visibility with Real-Time Gantt Charts in Smartsheet
With every project comes deadlines, resource allocation, and key tasks that must be completed to deliver your projects on time and on budget. Gantt charts help in this process so you can ensure that your projects progress as planned. To realize the full benefits of a Gantt chart, you need a collaborative tool that helps you manage your projects in one cohesive place and empowers both project managers and non-project managers alike to plan, track, automate, and report their work in real time.
Smartsheet is an enterprise work execution platform that is fundamentally changing the way businesses and teams work. Over 77,000 brands and millions of information workers trust Smartsheet to help them accelerate business execution and address the volume and velocity of today's collaborative work.
Use Smartsheet to visualize your projects with interactive Gantt charts that allow you to customize the quantity and duration of your tasks, highlight key tasks with conditional formatting, and quickly identify critical path to view all tasks that impact your completion date. Share your Gantt chart with team members and stakeholders to improve project visibility and task accountability, ensuring all projects are delivered on time and that no task is missed.
Try Smartsheet to discover why professionals around the world use it to more efficiently track, manage, and report on projects.
Discover more collaborative, real-time Gantt charts in Smartsheet.
At the core of project management is a simple idea: Know what you want to build, the steps you need to take to get there, and how long each one will take to complete.
![Best free gantt chart template for excel Best free gantt chart template for excel](https://s.studiobinder.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Free-Gantt-Chart-Excel-Template-Calendar-Cover-Image-StudioBinder.png?x37504&resolution=2560,2)
Sounds easy enough right? But as any seasoned project manager will tell you, it rarely stays that way. All of a sudden deadlines change, scope creeps up, resources change, or your team gets split to work on different projects. To stay on track no matter what happens you need a way to quickly see what needs to be done, track progress, and see what’s coming up behind the next curve.
Gantt Chart Excel Template
We’ve put together a simple Gantt Chart Excel template for you to use for free.
Gantt charts are one of the most powerful tools for seeing your path from 0–100% and identifying where issues might creep up. With a Gantt Chart, you get a quick, intuitive view of each task according to its time commitment and dependencies (i.e. what needs to get done before you can do that task).
Like most aspects of project management, Gantt Charts are simple in concept, but slightly more complicated in execution.
In this guide, we’ll run you through everything you need to know about how (and when) to use Gantt Charts, best practices for making them, and show you a step-by-step guide of how to create your own using Microsoft Excel and other more powerful project management tools.
We recommend you download the template first and follow along as we run through the guide.
Why (and when to) use a Gantt Chart
A Gantt Chart is a visual representation of tasks over time that is incredibly useful for planning projects of almost any size and complexity. With a Gantt Chart you can quickly see:
- The project’s start and finish dates
- Each individual project task and who is responsible for them
- When tasks start and finish and how long they should take
- How tasks group together, overlap and depend on each other
- The project’s progress and whether you’re keeping up with the schedule
In other words, a Gantt Chart can be used by anyone who is running or just wants to keep track of a project. While originally written out on paper, most modern project management tools like Planio offer Gantt Charts as an option for viewing your tasks.
Not only are Gantt Charts great for keeping track of your tasks. But seeing everything in a visual manner like this has some other major benefits.
Want to create a Gantt Chart right now?Sign up for a free trial of Planio today.
First, a Gantt Chart promotes detailed planning. Simply listing your tasks forces you to break them down into the smallest pieces to see their dependencies (the basis of task management!) Also, by including start and finish dates, it forces you to imagine the project all the way to completion, rather than get stuck in the messy middle.
Next, Gantt Charts show potential risks and resource overload. Download ninja blade pc game. With timelines clearly planned, you can quickly see where expectations might be high and you’ll need more resources (either time, people, or money).
Lastly, Gantt Charts are easy to read, which makes them great tools for improving project communication. Everyone understands a basic bar chart, which helps bring added clarity and motivation for hitting deadlines.
When you see a Gantt Chart, it will be broken down into two halves:
- On the left side: is each individual task with related information about what’s expected, who’s responsible, and what (if any) dependencies they have.
- On the right side: is a visual representation of those tasks across a calendar, which lets you see how long everything should take, the sequence of tasks, and their progress.
As you can probably tell, the power of the Gantt Chart is in its flexibility. They can be used for everything from developing an app, to redesigning a website, to remodelling your house.
Gantt Chart vs. Agile, Scrum, and Kanban
While Gantt Charts are great for keeping track of most projects, they make the most sense if you’re using traditional project management methods.
Where agile project management relies on working in sprints and constantly iterating projects based on user feedback, traditional project management is built around larger milestones—a grouping of tasks—that are completed in sequence.
Before you dive into making your own Gantt Chart, make sure that it aligns with the way you build projects.
Best Free Gantt Chart Template Excel
A step-by-step guide how to create a Gantt Chart in Excel
The great thing about Gantt Charts is just how simple of a concept they are. In fact, they’ve been around for over 100 years, with the earliest versions being created by Henry Gantt between 1910–1915.
Back then, however, Gantt Charts were drawn on paper. Meaning whenever a detail changed they’d have to recreate the entire chart. Today, we have the flexibility to create and adjust Gantt Charts quickly and easily with tools as commonplace as Microsoft Excel.
Building a Gantt Chart in Excel can be a bit of an arduous process, however. So rather than start from scratch, we’ve put together a free Gantt Chart Excel template you can download, customize, and even import into other project management tools.
If you haven’t already, download our free Gantt Chart Excel template and follow along.
Step 1: Name your project
Gantt Charts are all about clarity. So your first step should be to name both the project workbook and the chart itself.
Click once on the chart. In the top toolbar select Chart Design > Add Chart Element > Chart Title and select Above Chart.
Use something simple, yet specific like Website redesign or App V2.0. And remember to also include your name in the Project Title section at the top of the workbook alongside your company name and the team lead who will be responsible for any questions about the Gantt Chart.
Step 2: Add your tasks
The table beside your Gantt Chart is where you’ll list your tasks and any information about them. Start by simply giving them names. You want to go granular here as each task should represent a piece of work that is clearly defined and do-able in the given time frame.
Gantt Chart From Excel Spreadsheet
Just click on each cell in the table and rename it. The names will automatically update on the chart itself.
Step 3: Update task start and end dates (and additional information)
The power of a Gantt Chart comes once you can see each task’s proposed timeline and how they stack up.
Click on each task and update the Start and End date. The duration will automatically be calculated to tell you how long you’ve scheduled for the task.
You might notice that your chart gets a bit weird once you start changing dates around. There’s a simple process for fixing this:
- Hover over the first task’s Start Date. Right click and select Format Cells. Use the side navigation to select General. Write down the number you see (for me, it’s
43125
) and then hit Cancel. - Now, hover over the dates in the top axis of your Gantt Chart. Right click and select Format Axis.
- Select the bar chart if you’re not already there and then replace the Minimum Bounds with the number you wrote down.
- You can adjust the Maximum Bound to get rid of white space on the right of your Gantt Chart. Just play around and see what works.
As you can see, we’ve included a few extra data points to our Excel Gantt Chart table: Assigned to, % done, Priority, Description, and Sprint/Milestone. Include as much information here as you can for clarity. These tables can also be automatically imported into Planio if you’d rather have more flexibility over your Gantt Chart and project management.
Step 4: Add milestones and color-code tasks
It makes sense to break up your tasks by Milestones—a collection of tasks that represent some piece of your project being completed. This could be finishing coding a feature or redesigning a landing page—anything that marks the end of a chunk of work.
In our Excel Gantt Chart, we’re using both labelling in the table and color coding to see our Milestones. Here’s how to update both:
For the Milestone description: Click once on the cell associated to the task. Type in the name of the Milestone. Next, go into the top toolbar and click on the Paint Bucket Tool. Select a color that will represent that Milestone. Repeat for each task in the Milestone.
For the Gantt Chart: Now you want to change the colors on your Gantt Chart tasks to be the same as your descriptions. Click once on any bar in the Gantt Chart to select all of them and then right click on just the bar you want to change and select Format Data Point. From there, make sure your fill is set to Solid Fill, and then select the paint bucket and use the same color as in the table.
Step 5: Add more tasks and finalize your Excel Gantt Chart
The Gantt Chart Excel template we’ve provided you with has space for 17 tasks. But if your project is more complex, you can quickly and easily add more rows to your table and auto-update your chart:
- Select the last filled row in your table by clicking on the number beside the task’s name.
- Using the top toolbar select Insert > Rows. A new row will be automatically added underneath the selected one with all the appropriate formulas. Repeat as necessary.
Once your Gantt Chart is completed with all of the tasks, you can make some final edits to customize it in Excel. Change fonts. Play around with the date ranges to make the Gantt Chart clear and straightforward. Then, print or share with your team.
Import your excel Gantt Chart to Planio for more flexibility and control
Building a Gantt Chart using our Excel template is easy. But it’s not necessarily the best way to see your project if you’re going to be updating it regularly and adding in additional information. Instead, using a dedicated project management tool is a much easier and more powerful way to create, update, and use Gantt Charts. Dart scoring program for mac.
In Planio, you can take what you’ve already built in Excel and transfer it into a Planio project in just 2 steps.
Get a free 30-day trial of Planio by signing up here.- First, prepare your CSV file: A CSV file is simply the table you created for your tasks in Excel. You can save most Excel sheets as CSV files by clicking File > Save As… and then selecting Comma Separated Values as the format from the drop-down menu. We’ve set up our Gantt Chart Excel template using headers recognized by Planio, which means you don’t need to edit or adjust anything.
- Next, import your project CSV into Planio: Open your Planio project (or start a new one) and then use the side navigation bar to select Issues > Import. Select the CSV file you just saved. Finally, you have to map the values from the CSV files to issues in Planio (if you haven’t changed any headers in your Excel file, this shouldn’t be an issue). Then, simply click Import. If you have any issues, check out this support article.
Best Free Gantt Chart Template
Project management is all about clarity. Gantt Charts give you that.
No matter what tool you use to build your Gantt Chart, the goal should always be clarity. Adding unnecessary complexity is a recipe for disaster and it’s your role as a project manager or team lead to walk the line between keeping your project organized and not overwhelming your team with details.
Gantt Charts are a great way to do this, giving you a simple, visual way to see your tasks, timeline, and how it’s all going to play out. Grab our free Gantt Chart Excel Template and try it out for yourself!
Gantt Chart Excel Template
Blank Gantt Chart Template Excel
Get the free Gantt Chart Excel Template!