GANTT chart

Create a GANTT chart to:

• Visualize dependencies and critical paths within your project
• Clearly see which work item has to be picked up next
• Track progress compared to the work item planning, not just based on the sum of remaining estimates

The chart shows work items and their dependencies. Also, the blue bar is shaded to indicate progress (i.e., when there is completed work). A red line shows 'today' on the chart, which can be used to see if the project is on track.

Opposed to many of the alternatives (and especially hand-crafted planning sheets), this chart shows live data. No longer work with old data, or spend time recreating the chart.

Usage

Create a query with the work items you want to visualize. Save the query and press the GANTT tab to see the chart. Create a hierarchical query to get summary tasks.

If, for example, your project consists of an epic with child items (e.g., features) and these also contain child items, you may want to create a query of the type 'Tree of work items'. Select the epic and choose 'Parent/Child' as the tree type:

You can also use a query of type 'Work items and direct links'. For the linked work items, return items that have matching links of type 'child'.

Start and end dates

Items usually start when predecessors finish. Next to this, the following standard fields are used to determine the start and end dates of work items:

• Start date of the iteration
• Start Date
• Completed Work
• Remaining Work
• Original Estimate
• Target Date
• Finish Date
• Closed Date
• Story Points
• Effort (Scrum and CMMI-process)
• Size (CMMI-specific)

When a start date cannot be determined, it will get the default value of tomorrow, start of business.

Limitations

Although we think the GANTT chart is a must-have for effective project management, there are some limitations:

1. It is assumed that workdays run from 9:00 to 17:00 (8 hours a day).
2. Although team days off are supported, there is no support for days off for specific team members.
3. Team size and capacity are not considered, i.e., an unlimited number of work items can be planned in parallel.

Changes September 2022

• Fix missing dates in the top bar that occurred occasionally.

Changes April 2022

• Add ability to show target dates as milestones on summary tasks.

Changes March 2022

• Fix chart width issue with specific settings in Chrome.

Changes February 2022

• Add option to set work item color or annotation based on work item type.
• Add option to use progress for annotation (percentage of estimated hours spent).

Changes October 2021

• Add option to set the scale to days, weeks, or months
• Add expand/collapse all button

Changes August 2021

• Improved sorting of work items
• Add filter options for query columns

Changes November 2020

• Add option to set work item color or annotation based on area/node, assignee, or project.
• Add an option to show columns from the query.
• Add option to pin columns and header.
• Maintain target/finish date as the end date for work items with children, even if all children end sooner.

Changes September 2020

• Support team days off.
• Support team working days (instead of assuming that all teams work from Monday through Friday).
• User interface changes and show work item details in the sidebar.

Changes August 2020

• Fix limitation of 200 work items.
• Add support for iterations

Changes June 2020

• Performance improvements in chart generation.
• Show more than two levels (e.g., epics, features, and user stories).
• Allow collapsing work items with children (e.g., features).
• Improve stability and chart generation.

Changes August 2019

• Duration calculation now takes fields effort and size into consideration.

Changes July 2019

• When neither finish, closed, or target date had been set, the start date was not used. This is corrected.
• Derive start, finish, closed, and target dates from the parent if they are not set.
• Add velocity setting when using story points.
• Solved misalignment of date labels.