A gantt chart is a project management tool used to arrange the schedule of a project. It is built with bar chart in Excel to visualize the start and end dates of projects to help project managers easily oversee and manage resources. It also allows managers to identify opportunities for increasing productivity. A common Gantt chart should contain the following elements:

1. Tasks and sub-tasks should be listed on the left side
2. Dates are laid out at the top row
3. Bars indicate the length of each task and sub-tasks
4. Milestones represent critical tasks within a project and should be graphed differently than the rest of tasks using symbols