Why would you use a Gantt chart?

Frequently used in project management, a Gantt chart provides a graphical illustration of a schedule that helps to plan, coordinate, and track specific tasks in a project.

The Gantt Chart is a Project Management Tool giving you a visual chart of your project schedule.

This few shows the task names on the left hand side of the screen and displays the tasks as bars on the right hand side underneath a time scale. Gantt charts were initially named after a planner called Henry Laurence Gantt who worked as a mechanical engineer famous for his highly visual scheduling and monitoring diagram. Gantt Charts are drawn to display planned and actual project progress. A commonly accepted project management instrument these days, it was an innovation of world-wide significance in created while ship building during World War 1. Gantt charts were subsequently used to monitor large construction projects like the Hoover Dam started in 1931 and Terminal 5 at Heathrow in London.
A gantt chart is like a bar chart. It is often used to indicate periods of time in a project or schedule. It can show graphically how long something is expected to take, or when something is due to start and finish. It can also show how these things are related to each other, like how one thing must be complete before something else can begin. So if you are building a house, you could show how long it is expected to lay the foundations, which will give you an idea of when the building of the walls will begin. This could then help you to decide how soon you need to order the bricks for the wall.

You can use gantt charts to show things like when your holidays begin and end, or to plan your day, by showing how many hours you will spend doing various activities. There are lots of uses for gantt charts.