Gantt charts are a technique used in project management to visualize milestone and tasks. As a visualization technique, gantt charts and software that creates them have become so popular that many people equate the ability to create and read gantt charts with project management.

On the other hand, it has shown that gantt charts often draw a too simplicistic perspective on collaborative teamwork:

• The order of tasks in knowledge projects is often exchangable
• In order to create a full gantt chart, the project manager needs to understand all tasks in the project. For a discussion why this is hard, see bottom-up management.
• The length of tasks is hard to determine in advance, as innovation cannot be planned
• There is no way of expressing more complex dependencies between tasks

Software for creating Gantt Charts

• Microsoft Project (Windows, proprietary)
• GanntProject (Windows, Linux, Mac, open source)
• Merlin (Mac OS X, proprietary)
  
• OmniPlan (Mac OS X, proprietary)
• Open Workbench (Windows, open source)