Project Plan and Gantt Chart

A project plan is the structured schedule defining a project’s deliverables, tasks, owners, dependencies, and timeline. A Gantt chart is the horizontal bar chart used to visualize that plan over time, showing task durations, sequencing, and dependencies at a glance.

What a project plan contains

A complete project plan for a professional services engagement typically includes:

• Deliverables: the outputs the client is paying for
• Tasks: the work required to produce each deliverable
• Dependencies: which tasks must complete before others can begin
• Owners: who is responsible for each task
• Duration estimates: how long each task is expected to take
• Milestones: key checkpoints or client approval gates
• Critical path: the sequence of tasks that determines the earliest possible completion date

How a Gantt chart represents the plan

A Gantt chart plots tasks on a horizontal timeline. Each row is a task; each bar represents start-to-end duration. Dependency lines connect tasks that must sequence. The critical path is typically highlighted. Status indicators (complete, in progress, at risk) show delivery health at a glance.

The Gantt format was developed by Henry Gantt in the early 1900s and remains the dominant project schedule format in client-facing professional services work, because it communicates sequence and timing without requiring the viewer to understand project management tooling.

The Gantt is most useful as a communication device. A status report typically includes the Gantt or a milestone extract from it, giving the steering committee a clear view of schedule health.

Common pitfalls

• Building the plan once at kickoff and never updating it
• Showing a Gantt to a client that no longer reflects actual delivery sequencing
• No owner assigned to tasks: team-owned work is unowned work
• No buffer for dependencies outside the project team’s control, such as client approvals or vendor deliveries

A resource planning process should run in parallel with the project plan so that staffing matches the task schedule. Delivery overruns often trace back to a project plan that was accurate on tasks but never connected to actual resource availability.

Project plan vs. burndown

A project plan and a burndown chart serve different purposes. The project plan shows the planned sequence and ownership of all tasks across the engagement. A burndown tracks remaining work against a sprint or phase target, showing whether the team is on pace to finish on time. Teams using sprint-based delivery often maintain both: a Gantt for client-facing milestone communication and a burndown for internal sprint tracking. The two should be consistent: if the burndown shows the team is behind, the project plan milestone dates should reflect that.