Project Gantt Chart

About this template

When to use this

Use this workbook for a project that fits inside a twelve-week window and needs its phases and sub-tasks on one page. Scheduling runs on week numbers, not calendar dates, so when kickoff slips you edit the single Project period line on the Schedule overview sheet and reuse the whole grid.

Filling it in

1. In section 1 of Schedule overview, replace the project name, the period (2026-01-05 ~ 2026-03-27, 12 wks), the lead PM and the document number. Leave the As-of date alone; it holds =TODAY().
2. On Task list, rows 6-15, enter task name, stage and owner, then put a week number from 1 to 12 in Start (F) and End (G). Week 3 to week 5 means F=3, G=5.
3. Progress in column I is a decimal from 0 to 1. Sixty percent is 0.6.
4. Shade the matching week cells in the grid at C19:N28. Phase rows take the solid fill; sub-task rows, marked └, take the lighter one.
5. Put a ◆ in the week a phase closes, make the milestone table at B32:H37 agree on that week and deliverable, and log schedule risks on Issues & risks, rows 6-17.

Worked examples

• “Screen design” with Start 3, End 5 and progress 0.6 returns a period of 3 weeks and the status In progress by itself.
• Milestone M2 lands in week 5, so ◆ sits in column G of the grid while the milestone table shows Target week W5 and Key deliverable “Requirements spec”. Move one and move the other, or the two views disagree.

How the formulas work

• Period, H6: =IF(C6=””,””,G6-F6+1). Start and end weeks are both counted, so a task opening and closing in one week is 1.
• Status, J6: =IF(C6=””,””,IF(I6>=1,”Done”,IF(I6>0,”In progress”,”Pending”))) — progress of 1 or more gives Done, above 0 gives In progress, and 0 gives Pending.
• The overview summary uses =AVERAGE(‘Task list’!I6:I15), =COUNTIF(‘Task list’!J6:J15,”Done”), =COUNTA(‘Task list’!C6:C15) and =SUM(‘Task list’!H6:H15). On the task sheet, the last end week, =MAX(G6:G15), exceeding 12 means a task now runs past the right edge of the grid.
• Issues & risks counts with =COUNTA(D6:D17) and =COUNTIF(H6:H17,”Open”), so a cleared issue has to be moved off “Open” — the rules there ask for “Done”.

Common mistakes

• Typing 60 in the progress column. Anything from 1 up flips the row to Done and sends average progress into the thousands of percent.
• Updating the task list but not the grid. The bars are cell background color, not a formula, so nothing moves until you repaint them.
• Continuing an eleventh task on row 16. Every roll-up reads rows 6-15 only, so that task appears in no metric at all.
• Rating an issue’s impact with a word other than High, Medium or Low, which leaves the register impossible to sort.