The Mechanics of Doing a Gantt Chart

1. Put the tasks down the lefthand side, starting with the tasks that are on the critical path (make the column wide enough so all of the tasks can fit.)

2. Put in the floating tasks (I am leaving a couple of gaps - you will see why in a minute, but have no fear if you need to go back and change something; it is easy in Excel to move things around with cut and paste.)

3. Across the top we will put week numbers (we will put dates in later - we will just start with the weeks, extending over the length of the project, which is determined by your critical path.)  I know from my critical path that my project duration is 41, so I can take the first few numbers and simply copy it out over the span of 41 columns.  Select the 41st column, go back to the column for the first week and, while holding down the shift key, I adjust the width of the first week, all of them will reduced to the column width I want.  Then go across the top and center the numbers.

4. Next I am going to use 'Conditional Formatting' in order make my horizontal task bars color in automatically.  Select the entire area of the critical path, go to 'Conditional Formatting' (under the Home tab) and click on (at the top) 'Highlight cells rules' and find the 'Greater Than...' - cells that are greater than 0, select Red.

Do the same thing for the Floating Tasks - only, instead of turning the highlight section to Red, set it for Green.

5. Put in the bars of the Critical Path and simply put in 1s for every week, for as long as the task extends (for mine, that is 5 weeks of 'Choose Site', then 13 weeks for 'Get Permit', then 12 weeks for 'Purchase Site', then put in 10 weeks for 'Modify Building' - but, highlight and cut these 10 weeks, showing the overlap with 'Purchase Site' (where I crashed my critical path); this is what an overlap/crash point looks like.  And then, finally, installing the furniture: only 3 weeks - this adds up to the 41 week plan.

6.  The last thing is 'Open', which is an event, not a task.  How do I show an event?  Put a vertical line all the way down (like a finish line) and then place a blue diamond on the line, right on the row for 'Open'.  Go to insert, illustrations, shapes.

7. Now I insert my floating tasks - the first one is 'Find Site'; what does it come after and what does it come before?  It comes after 'Choose location' and it comes before 'Purchase Site'.  So, I put a vertical line after 'Choose location' and a vertical line before 'Purchase Site'.

8. So, then I place 'Find Site' - I will put it in the middle for now, but I might push it later or shove it earlier later; I can choose (if I do it too late, I have no safety margin - but, if I do it too early I have to wait too long.)  I will put arrows on either side to show it is a floating task.

9. Next, the manager, comes after choosing the site, too.  It has to be in before the furniture - which is not on yet; thus, they are a double.  They both must be completed before installing the furniture, the 39th week - I will put a line there.  So, we need to do both of these before the 39th week and after the 5th week.  I am going to get the manager early, since she can help me with the other stuff, but I am going to buy the furniture later, so as not to have it sitting around (and it will cost me money.)  I will put arrows in (insert, shapes) - have a week safety buffer.  Then, an arrow after buying the furniture.  Then I will connect the two with a right angle line,

10. Finally, hiring staff - after the 12th week; this is a floater hanging off of a floater (so I will put a vertical line down.  I will put this right at the end - I want to pay for them as late as I can.

11. Then I insert a column to show who is in charge of each task.

12. Then I want to insert real dates. Insert a row above - select whole row, right click, format cells, then alignment vertical.