How to Create a Gantt Chart in Jira

Ready to reinvent your project management in Jira with Gantt charts?

Learn how you can get more out of your existing Jira projects with Ricksoft’s WBS Gantt-Chart for Jira plugin in this starter guide.

But first, check out our Ultimate Guide to Jira Gantt Charts for an in-depth understanding of the key features of Gantt charts and their capabilities.

Now on to the real deal: let us show you step-by-step how to create a Gantt chart in Jira.

Step 1: Create a Gantt

Once the WBS Gantt-Chart add-on is installed, you can access it in the top-level menu of your Jira dashboard. Simply click Create Gantt from the dropdown menu to get started.

How to Create a Gantt Chart in Jira

You will be prompted to select the data from Jira projects or Jira filters for your new Gantt:

create-a-new-Gantt

The custom Project(s) field will autocomplete your project’s name from Jira as you input the keywords, or you can directly select from the dropdown menu.

create-Gantt-from-project

Now you’ve successfully transformed your project into a Gantt chart. It consists of a work breakdown structure (WBS) of all your issues and a Gantt to display timeline overview.

Use WBS to display all your project tasks-1

Here, you can directly edit and update new issues without going back to Jira. Simply click Add successor or Create child issue from the contextual menu of any issue.

Create child issues in Gantt chart


Knowledge Base

We help you juggle multiple development stages of a project via Gantt version creation. This feature is essential for PMPs in iterative product development.

WBS Gantt-Chart lets you create, edit, or delete a version following Jira’s native features. Whereby you can add an issue to either Fix version(s) or Affects version(s).

The Affects version indicates where the problem exists and the Fix version indicates where the problem has been, or will be, fixed.

Knowledgebase

For instance, your product team is working on a Q2 release, let’s call it software Ver 1.1. In this release, you expect a minor update to a feature from the preceding version. So, you create an issue and assign it to Ver 1.0 in the Affects version field. This helps your developers to keep track of all the different versions of the software as it evolves.

All your stories from Jira will get automatically pushed to WBS Gantt-Chart when linking to a Fix version. For more details on Version Configuration, read our guide on Gantt version settings.


Step 2: Schedule Projects

A project can turn into chaos without a clear work structure and a logical timeline for sequential tasks. This is where WBS Gantt-Chart plugin can save your project from downfalls. It gives you the ability to automate a large chunk of your project scheduling with an intuitive drag-and-drop interface.

Here’s how it works: 1.

1. Once you’ve assigned the start date and duration for a task, the app will auto-calculate the finish date with respect to your team’s actual working days. Otherwise, you can manually select the finish date. It’s also possible to drag, stretch or shorten the task bar on the Gantt chart to modify the schedule.

schedule-projects

2. To add dependencies, simply click on the beginning or end of a task bar, drag and drop it where you want to create a connection, either at the beginning or end of another task.

3. A precedence-constrained task always corresponds with its successor issue, so you can freely adjust the schedule as and when required while keeping the dependencies intact.

successor-issue

Watch the WBS Gantt-chart scheduling tutorial:

Knowledge Base For the Gantt chart to schedule your tasks accurately based on actual delivery capabilities, make sure to configure your project team’s working calendar, including Holidays and rest days.

configure-sample-Gantt

Find this setting in the Settings menu (the gear icon) at the top-right corner of your Gantt.


WBS Gantt-Chart for Jira is tuned for enterprise-scale project management. Unlike other Jira plugins that automatically save every change, WBS waits until you’re ready to save your updates. This enables you to freely “play” with your schedule, without sending unnecessary notifications to your team or leaving you waiting on a slow server.

Step 3: Assign and Plan Resources

As the project takes shape, it’s time to estimate team capacity and start distributing the work. Ideally, you would want to assign resources to each issue based on everyone’s current and future availability.

WBS Gantt-Chart’s resource planning tool allows you to simultaneously view individual’s workload, presented as “Units,” and finetune the work contour on the Gantt chart. If anyone is assigned an excessive amount of work, the bar in the chart turns red to alert you of this. See it in action here:

Related: How to Use Gantt Chart for Project Planning

Step 4: See Project Progress and Visualize Your Success

The critical phase of project management begins at the end of your project planning. Remember to save the Gantt that you’ve just created as a Baseline to track your project progress against the original plan.

From the Tools dropdown in the operations menu, select All Child Issues to create your Baseline. Now you’ll see light gray colored bars underneath your tasks showing the Baseline Plan. This makes it easy to track whether you’re ahead or behind schedule.

On top of that, as a project manager, you must be aware of the potential bottlenecks that may affect the project deliverables. Pay attention to the project’s critical paths, highlighted in red, to prioritize tasks accordingly.

You can enable this feature from the Tools dropdown and select Critical Path. Note that you won’t be able to edit the WBS chart with critical paths displayed.

visualize-your-success

That’s it! You have mastered next-level project management with WBS Gantt-Chart for Jira. Try it today for free.

If you have any problems implementing Gantt charts, drop us a message!

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