PWPM Wiki

Web Application Development Gantt Chart

This is a practical guide to building a gantt chart for a web application development project — a bar-chart view of the schedule showing tasks, durations and dependencies, adapted to the realities of building a custom web application.

What a Gantt Chart is

A gantt chart is a bar-chart view of the schedule showing tasks, durations and dependencies. For the full concept and how it works in general, see Gantt Chart. On a web application development project it plays the same role, tuned to this kind of work.

Why it matters for a Web Application Development project

Web Application Development projects live or die on building a custom web application. A well-built gantt chart gives the team a shared, explicit reference for exactly that — reducing ambiguity, aligning stakeholders, and making problems visible early enough to act. Skipping it, or doing it generically, is how web application development projects drift into avoidable delay and cost.

What to include

  • Task bars by start/end date
  • Dependency links
  • Milestones
  • Owners/resources
  • Baseline overlay

Web Application Development-specific considerations

Tailor the gantt chart to the risks that most often derail web application development projects:

  • Unclear or shifting requirements
  • Technical debt
  • Security and performance at scale

Example

On a real web application development project, the gantt chart would be shaped by building a custom web application. In particular, it should explicitly account for the project’s biggest risks — unclear or shifting requirements, technical debt, security and performance at scale — rather than treating them as afterthoughts.