How to Create an Asana Gantt Chart in 5 Simple Steps
Regardless of whether you’re working as a freelancer or in a team, one of the most useful ways to organize your project tasks is by using an Asana Gantt chart. Asana is a browser-based task and to-do list manager that lets you do different projects with different deadlines, complications, and timelines.
It also lets you create simple project management charts that show multiple tasks from different projects and even have elements on the Gantt charts, including time estimates, weather, location, and more. You can also include notes, attachments, links, and tasks related to the overall project on the same chart, as well as mark items from your project as complete.
You will learn:
- What is a Gantt Chart?
- Introduction to Asana Gantt Chart
- Features of Asana Gantt Chart
- Benefits of Asana Gantt Chart
- Steps to Create an Asana Gantt Chart
What is a Gantt Chart?
A Gantt chart is a graphic representation of a project’s schedule as a time-phased bar chart. It is named for its creator, Henry Gantt, a U.S. mathematician and creator of the earliest modern project scheduling system. It is a disciplined project-management tool that involves identifying tasks, assigning resources, and assigning timelines and milestones to the tasks.
Introduction to Asana Gantt Chart
Project managers can plan their work and determine a project’s timetable, thanks to Asana Gantt Charts. Project scheduling can assist teams in organizing themselves to meet deadlines and provide quality work.
The length of a bar in a Gantt chart denotes the time needed to accomplish a task, and each bar represents a phase of the project (or task within a project). The Asana Gantt chart gives you a comprehensive perspective of the workflow so that management can monitor each task and assign it the appropriate priority.
Features of Asana Gantt Chart
1. Project Progress Streamlining
Asana offers a cloud-based platform for tracking project progress. The Gantt chart is updated after the team submits its tasks online. It automatically updates the Gantt chart whenever any team member in the collaboration makes any changes.
2. Schedule
The start and finish dates of each job for a project are provided by Asana Gantt charts. The tasks can be planned and scheduled differently if their timing conflicts with those of other tasks.
3. Map Dependencies
Team members may quickly prioritize their work in addition to visualizing a timetable with Asana Gantt Charts. Some activities, however, are dependent on earlier tasks, helping teams or team members see the value of their contributions within a project phase. Teams can change dependencies appropriately before taking on a new assignment, even if work needs to be delayed for whatever reason.
4. Milestones
Asana Gantt charts help teams with their milestones, which are different points of a project phase, by spanning horizontal bars according to the completion time. These bullet points will give quick insight into a project’s timetable by identifying significant dates and times.
Benefits of Asana Gantt Chart
1. View your project’s timetable
A Gantt chart is a project’s road map. This application makes it easy to keep track of milestones and determine whether you’re on pace to meet them. This kind of timeline view provides a bird’s eye perspective on your activity, making it a handy tool to show to top management or clients for a brief overview.
2. Look at the connections between the tasks
You can see how each activity impacts the others by setting the start and finish dates for each task and creating dependencies. This assists you in locating issues and resolving dependencies and conflicts before you begin.
3. Enhance team resource management by giving each task an owner
This will allow you to understand who is responsible for what and when which will help you better manage individual workloads. Because everything is planned out sequentially, you can determine if a team member or individual has too much work to perform at once and reassign or reschedule tasks as necessary.
Steps to Create an Asana Gantt Chart
Now let us look at how to create an Asana Gantt chart in five easy steps. We encourage you to sign in to your Asana account and follow the steps along with this guide.
Step 1: Define the Time Range
The projected start and completion dates of tasks must be planned by the authorities before starting with the Asana Gantt chart. For instance, a project with a start and finish date should be in your Gantt chart. Consider using this chart to depict your project across a period; a timeline requires a start and end point.
Step 2: Add Tasks With Start and End Dates
Drag the desired tasks into the required time frame in Asana’s timeline view to construct a schedule. You can set a task time by changing the task’s duration. By selecting a specific task, a user can also define the preferred timing.
Make sure each task has a defined start and end date so that you can easily visualize it on a bar chart. This will help you visualize your to-do list effectively as well.
Your tasks will appear as points in time if you don’t include task start dates, which may make them more difficult to visualize in the context of the whole project.
Step 3: Clarify Dependencies
Because it’s common in projects that certain tasks can’t begin until the others are finished, Asana offers the Gantt chart with the dependency function. To ensure that teams are aware of their duties for each task they manage in such situations, a dependency might be developed. Let us say, Assigning Project Tasks cannot happen without completing the Project Discussion stage. Now it is a dependency and it needs to be addressed.
It’s common for some jobs in big projects to need to wait for the completion of others before beginning. You can see how tasks are interdependent in your Gantt chart to keep the project on track and all teams informed.
Step 4: Pinpoint Milestones
A project should have a few predetermined checkpoints or milestones. These details let management know that more of the task has been finished. The teams get motivated to contribute their work effectively and actively. The Gantt chart shows a milestone with a line when a product has passed test requirements.
Milestones are fixed moments in time, unlike the majority of jobs in a Gantt chart. Consider them as milestones that serve as a reminder that important tasks have been completed. When they are finished, they may be wonderful occasions for celebration and they assist your team in deciding what to emphasize.
Step 5: Modify Work as Plans Change
Businesses may fail to adequately report their progress despite careful preparation. An extra evaluation of a product may be requested by management, which would cause the schedule to be delayed.
Unavoidable changes to plans are accommodated by Asana. Users have two options for changing the date of a task: they can drag the entire task or only click on the task they want to update.
Plans will certainly alter, thus, your Gantt chart software should be flexible enough to accommodate these changes. Look for a program that makes it simple for you to drag and drop jobs and that instantly updates dependencies.
In this manner, despite changing plans, you can always keep your project on schedule.
Closing Thoughts
An Asana Gantt chart is a powerful tool for organizing, planning, and tracking the progress of a project or task. Both undergraduates and professionals can benefit from deploying this versatile tool, which is made possible through the application of project management software.
Asana has a built in free resource called the Asana Template Library where you can pick the template most suited for your project and industry needs.
Moreover, Asana Gantt charts are highly customizable and thus you can easily create a “war room” environment for your project management. However, there are also restrictions on which projects you can chart and what functions they can perform. For example, you cannot create a task board, which allows you to view multiple projects at once and track multiple deadlines.
But overall, the Asana Gantt chart helps you in more ways than one. More importantly, it streamlines all your projects so you can work on it efficiently and effectively at a faster rate.
For more information on project management software and methodologies read our blogs.
For courses on project management and tools please check our course list.
Must Reads:
- How to Create a Jira Gantt Chart using Plugins[2022]
- How to Format a Gantt Chart in Microsoft Project 2016
- Asana vs. Jira: The 6 Key Differences
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What is Asana?
Asana is a task-board software application that helps people organize their workflows, manage their to-do lists, and share their progress with team members. You can use Asana to plan, execute, track, and collaborate on your tasks. It helps to keep people and projects organized and in line with schedules. You can even use Asana to collaborate online or offline with different people, communicating and sharing progress with your team.
2. Why is the Gantt chart important?
Asana is a personal productivity tool that uses a Gantt Chart to visually schedule and organize tasks, so you can finish them when they’re most convenient. Using this chart, you can add tasks, arrange them, and even adjust deadlines. With Asana, you can even share your work with others without losing the changes you make. The software is compatible with different operating systems too, so you can access it anywhere.
3. Is the Asana Gantt Chart easy to make?
Yes, the Asana Gantt Chart is easy to make. Follow the steps and you will eventually be able to create this great tool for managing your project plans. Asana Gantt charts can be used in different ways, from project management to organizing tasks for the entire work week or month.
Simon Calder
Chris “Simon” Calder was working as a Project Manager in IT for one of Los Angeles’ most prestigious cultural institutions, LACMA.He taught himself to use Microsoft Project from a giant textbook and hated every moment of it. Online learning was in its infancy then, but he spotted an opportunity and made an online MS Project course - the rest, as they say, is history!
