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Classics in Project Management: Revisiting the Past, Creating the Future
Edited by Jonas Söderland and Joana Geraldi
1 Introduction
This article explores the conceptual roots of a classic tool of project management, the "Gantt chart". The Gantt chart is one of the most used planning and controlling tools in projects today. In a survey with 750 project managers, the Gantt chart was the fourth most used tools out of 70 tools and techniques associated with project management ([4] Besner and Hobbs, 2008). Indeed, we can hardly imagine project management practice or training without it. As project management scholars and practitioners we are all familiar with the Gantt chart, and many have used it to plan and control a project or personal complex tasks. Thus, the Gantt chart is part of the common language amongst the members of project management community.
Considering that management discipline is replete of fashions and fads ([1] Abrahamson and Fairchild, 1999), the Gantt chart is remarkably resilient; it was developed nearly a 100 years ago ([47] Wilson, 2003), and survives until today despite numerous innovations in the area. In the 1950s, more sophisticated scheduling techniques were introduced ([26] Morris, 1994), such as Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) and critical path method (CPM) methods. Unlike the Gantt chart, these tools enabled the analysis of more complex relationships between the tasks, the needed resources and the uncertainty of each task's duration. With such precision, the critical path could be better calculated and understood. Still, these tools did not supersede the Gantt chart, nor did they substitute its use. Actually, the use of Gantt chart increased at the time ([47] Wilson, 2003); the tools were used in combination, and the outcome was visualised through the Gantt chart. Later, earned value was introduced, and provided a more holistic understanding of project progress by linking cost, time and progress into one tool. In the 1990s, the concept of critical chain was introduced ([16] Goldratt, 1997), which highlighted the influence of behaviour aspects into projects. Still, the Gantt chart remained an important tool both in planning and controlling project schedules; so much so that popular project management software, such as MS Project and Primavera, uses the Gantt chart as the central platform to plan and manage...