Agile Gantt – The evolution of a manifesto

Originally published August 31, 2021

When Henry Gantt first published his bar charts in the early 1900s, they were considered to be state of the art. By listing tasks on a vertical axis and then showing the schedule for completing those tasks on a horizontal axis, project managers were able to help their teams more easily visualize the overall project at a glance. For wartime and industrial-age projects, the Gantt chart became a popular tool for ensuring massive projects were completed on time and on budget.

Project, program and portfolio managers (collectively referred to as project managers) have pushed the evolution of the Gantt Chart over the last 100 years. From laboriously redrawing the chart each time the schedule changed, to the first software versions that allowed project managers to more easily add additional related information like project completion percentages, task assignments and the relationship between tasks.

Gantt charts also became a common tool to help project managers easily explain the status of important projects during meetings with senior management. Management became skilled at reading Gantt charts and noticing “tent-pole” tasks that were extending project deadlines and troublesome “pre-reqs” that were causing delays. Unfortunately, Gantt charts sometimes told only part of the story and project managers were left trying to explain important details without having the necessary data readily available.

Kanbans and Waterfalls

In 2001, 17 software development practitioners developed and published their Agile Manifesto.

While the benefits of iterative and rapid development had been around for decades, the Agile Manifesto brought the concept of Agile software development to the mainstream.

The Agile Manifesto is rooted in four stated values:

1. Individual interactions over process and tools.

2. Working software over comprehensive documentation.

3. Customer collaboration over contract negotiation.

4. Responding to change over following a plan.

As you can imagine, the only message many project managers paid attention to was, “no process, no plan, no documentation.” And the thought of losing those three control points caused them to break out in a cold sweat. Their livelihood was rooted in controlling projects. Even the Project Management Institute (PMI) highlighted “control” as one of its five phases of professional project management.

Regardless of the early resistance from project managers, Agile methods started to take hold. At first, it was a grassroots effort using Scrum or Kanban boards covered by a rainbow of sticky notes.

Over a period of a few years, project managers started seeing elements of Agile creep into their project management software.

However, a large percentage of project managers couldn’t figure out an effective way to incorporate Agile methods into their five-phase, waterfall approach to managing projects. How can the scope change when the CIO has already signed the requirements document?

What followed was a period where confusion and conflict reigned in software development shops all over the world. Project managers were continuing to develop plans and schedules and reports based on a waterfall approach and software development teams were holding their own scrum meetings, creating Kanban boards, resisting documentation requests, and recommending scope changes during development and testing phases.

Fortunately, as collaborative software developers came up with better ways to present data in a hybrid (Waterfall/Agile) way, project managers started to adapt. They began to realize they could still create and assign tasks, they could still have a high-level schedule in place and they could still follow a general software development lifecycle (SDLC).

Additionally, they started to see the benefits they could realize by following an Agile approach. Best practices started to evolve very quickly at this point in time and project managers started demanding even more integration from their software. Luckily, companies like Atlassian responded. Software-based solutions for project management in an Agile world became common.

The thing that remained elusive were Gantt-based timelines, in all of their modern glory, adapted for an Agile world.

Agile Gantt is the next evolutionary phase

As Agile user stories, sprints, standups, Scrum boards, and Kanban boards grew in popularity, the once-favored Gantt chart got lost in the mix. Because it had limited contextual data, it lost some of its magic.

Then ALM Works and a handful of other vendors created the next evolution in Gantt technology, Gantt apps built for Agile. In this case, built for Jira.

Built on Structure, one of the leading Jira apps on the Atlassian Marketplace, Gantt Charts for Structure PPM is our most popular, optional, Structure extension. If you're looking for a Gantt solution for Jira, this one gives you the best of both worlds — a Gantt-style project timeline with visually depicted dependencies and resource allocation highlights, and support for Agile practices. Plus it's purpose-built for Jira.

Agile Gantt is an inflection point in the industry

Inflection points that impact entire industries are rare. However, there is no question Agile Gantt is a true inflection point in the field of professional project management. Gantt charts have always been an outstanding way to visualize entire projects. From the work breakdown structure (WBS) to assignments to scheduled completion dates, the Gantt view is superior.

Gantt Charts for Structure has taken the foundational benefits of a Gantt chart and revolutionized the manner in which Agile teams will view, manage, interact and revise their project plans. In short, it is simply the new, best way to manage software development projects using an Agile methodology. Sophisticated, integrated and flexible.

Structure.Gantt offers evolutionary functionality

Our Agile Gantt capabilities were first introduced in the on-prem edition of Gantt Charts for Structure in 2019. It took things to a new level of Agile support in a Gantt solution for Jira. The most exciting capability tightly couples the Gantt chart with sprint planning. Now those capabilities are available in the cloud edition of Gantt Charts for Structure PPM as well.

Specifically, in an Agile environment, tasks are often assigned to a specific sprint, vs. a specific date. In Gantt Charts for Structure, project managers can now use sprints for manual scheduling of tasks — so tasks can be scheduled to begin and end based on sprint dates.

And of course, because it is built on top of Structure, project managers gain all the benefits of an elegant Gantt presentation: a work breakdown structure, estimates, timelines, progress bars, visualization of dependencies, and more.

What’s more, since teams are often assigned several tasks that all need to be completed during a sprint but in no specific order, managing the workload for those teams has long been outside the reach for traditional Gantt charts.

Gantt Charts for Structure solves this problem too, with our new fixed-duration task management feature. As tasks are assigned, the workload for each task is divided evenly across its duration, allowing project managers to quickly identify and address overloads or opportunities within each sprint.

Adjusting the dates for a fixed-duration task (or the sprint it’s assigned to) will not affect its work (that can be adjusted separately in the Task Details panel or in Jira itself). 

Simply put, this is the answer project managers working in Agile organizations have been waiting for. They’ve realized there are significant benefits in using hardened tools like Gantt charts as well as new Agile methods like sprints. By fully integrating with Jira’s Agile features, Gantt Charts for Structure evolves into something entirely new (an Agile Gantt solution), while maintaining the already understood principles most project managers rely on to get their work done.

Gantt Charts for Structure PPM is the evolution you’ve been waiting For

Gantt Charts for Structure provides project managers with the opportunity to continue to embrace the scheduling realities that are imposed on their projects by business-related deadlines, market competition, and budgetary constraints.

At the same time, it provides them with the necessary tools to get the most out of an Agile methodology. In fact, the manner in which Gantt Charts for Structure integrates data from standard Jira data sources will become the new normal. Project managers will increase efficiency, reduce errors and improve overall product quality while experiencing the maximum power of the old and the new blended to perfection.

With Structure.Gantt you get the best of both worlds. Agile, Gantt-driven portfolio management, built on a Jira foundation. The evolution is complete. Tempo has invented the future of project management and Agile collaboration.

Try Gantt Charts for Structure PPM today. Visit the Atlassian Marketplace to learn more — and download a free trial.