Best Gantt Chart Tools for Large Teams

As experience shows, teams that rely on visual project management tools are much more efficient than those using notes, docs, spreadsheets and emails. It is particularly relevant for large teams, since using one or the other approach can either boost their efficiency or set projects to failure.

Gantt chart software provides a structured way to arrange and visualize planned tasks, dependencies, and deadlines. How do you choose the best one?

Here’s a look at some of the most effective Gantt chart tools for large teams:

• GanttPRO
• Microsoft Project
• Teamdeck
• Instagantt
• Avaza

Find out below what makes these tools stand out and how they can help your large team.

What Makes the Best Gantt Chart Software?

The best Gantt chart software is not just about pretty colorful timelines. It is a complex tool, and oftentimes a backbone of a project management. What are the key features that distinguish great tools from mediocre ones?

First of all, pay attention to scalability matters tremendously. As a team grows, and it usually deos, your software should be able to adapt to the increasing users, tasks, and projects without performance troubles. The system shouldn’t freeze when many team members work in it simultaneously.

Collaboration features are also very important. Since you work in a team, look for tools that instantly update information on each end, have commenting sections and editable notifications for major events. The possibility to assign tasks and check progress without in-person meetings will save you countless hours.

Resource management is something that separates basic timeline tools from advanced project management software. The best Gantt chart software should be complemented with the possibility to visualize how work is distributed, identify excess and balance it where needed.

Cloud-based options typically offer more flexibility regardless of the team’s distribution. Plus, the online version usually allows you to connect from any device where at the office, in a meeting, or remotely from anywhere.

Finally, even the most feature-rich tool will seem bad if your team can’t understand how it works. An intuitive interface with less features sometimes is more valuable than the one with 200+  complicated incoherent features.

What Tools Are Suitable for a Large Team?

In essence, most of the time large teams need the same features as small teams. However, bigger teams may face some unique challenges that require specific capabilities from project management solutions. One of them is organizational complexity.

Clear dependency mapping within complex projects and large teams is the first requirement. When one team’s deliverable marks the start of another team’s work on the next deliverable, visualizing these connections becomes essential. And the more dependencies a team has, the more advanced the functionality should be.

Fast onboarding and implementation of the tool. Onboarding large teams is resource and time-consuming per se. But if the software is complicated, that part becomes even more tedious and costly. So, intuitive yet fully-fledged tools should be a priority.

Workload and collaboration aspects are also important to ensure that resources are used properly and optimally, and eliminate any friction in collaboration that large teams are often prone to.  

Let’s see how the selected tools address these requirements inf large-team environments.

GanttPRO

Why should large teams consider it:

• Scalable for when your team’s need grow
• Intuitive even for most complex features
• Facilitates collaboration in a large team
• Great project planning and management functionality

GanttPRO was built specifically for complex Gantt chart visualization. Therefore, large teams with big and complex projects will be able to get the most out of the high-level planning combined with detailed control during the execution phase.

New teams will like the proportion of simplicity and depth of the app. Novice users and project collaborators can learn how to work in the app quickly, while project managers with experience can configure and work with advanced features like critical path analysis and baselines. This universal accessibility makes the implementation much smoother and faster, especially for large teams.

Project managers can organize team members into departments or custom groups and delegate tasks within them. The platform allows anyone to add an unlimited number of virtual resources which is often an issue for big teams.

The workload section shows each member’s working hours and highlights overallocation.  Project managers and administrators can drag and drop tasks and fix it in a few minutes. For large teams working with many projects simultaneously, the app can also show the total workload of a resource across projects.

Synchronization won’t be an issue either. Project participants can register and see project updates to avoid misunderstandings and miscommunications that happen a lot in large teams.

Microsoft Project

Why should large teams consider it:

• Advanced planning and scheduling
• Embeddedness into Microsoft 365
• Supports for large-scale projects, custom workflows, and automation

Despite being the oldest one in the project management arena, Microsoft Project still can be easily considered the champion. Particularly, within the enterprise-level teams that often use  the whole package of Microsoft 365. Its longevity helps it to make features more robust and advanced with the time, and that’s something significant for large-scale projects and teams.

Experienced project managers value the depth of resource management above all. The software is suitable for the largest projects as it can process thousands of resources. Resource leveling and skill-based assignments help optimize the distribution of workforce and materials among projects. But one thing you have to bear in mind is that it can be very difficult for beginners. If this is your case, you’d better find an alternative to Microsoft Project.

The embeddedness into the Microsoft system allows to set up a satisfying experience of using tools like Teams, SharePoint, and Office 365. Most of all because it reduces discordance when working with different information and tasks within platforms and departments.

Reporting is another aspect usually looked for by managers handling large teams and projects. It’s beneficial both for C-level executives to get an overview of current projects, and for department heads that can analyze their teams’ performance. This multi-level approach is often what a large organization needs most. 

Teamdeck

Why should large teams consider it:

• Solid resource management
• Time-tracking
• Forecasting capabilities

Teamdeck looks at Gantt charts from a resource management perspective. Thus, teams that struggle with optimal allocation will find it particularly useful. The platform integrates timelines with resource scheduling and time tracking, so that the entire management experience feels more unified.

Just like with GanttPRO, in Teamdeck large teams can visualize cross-project resources’ availability. Project managers can see which team member is free while assigning tasks, and which one has too many tasks. In projects that implicate many resources that are essential.  

Project leaders can also forecast which resources will be needed with a capacity planning feature. Since large teams frequently need to scale up or down, this possibility is rather valuable for planning, hiring or redistributing workloads.

Teamdeck’s learning curve isn’t steep at all. So teams have to be able to quickly adapt, while the organization can save the onboarding time and resources for other important tasks. 

Lastly, the Gantt chart view is integrated with time tracking, where managers can get valuable data on estimated versus actual time spent on tasks. This is important for small and large teams equally, but having this source of control in a complex setting is a must.

Instagantt

Why should large teams consider it:

• Strong integration with Asana
• Workload balancing across projects
• High-volume task management

Instagantt is still considered by many project managers to be an addition to a popular work management tool Asana, while in fact being a solid standalone option. It specializes in Gantt charts and can offer large teams high-resolution visualization of connections between tasks and projects.

The app presents different types of timelines in quite a digestible way and compliments them with color selection, grouping, and filtering options. It comes in handy when information piles up in large projects and it becomes difficult to discern. 

Project managers in large organizations usually highlight the ability to set up cross-project dependencies to manage interconnected initiatives, and see, for example, when one team’s deadline affects another’s start date.

Similarly to other Gantt chart tools in the list, Instagantt incorporates a workload view that helps managers identify when team members have too much or too little work to do. In large teams this visibility helps maintain a healthy balance and prevent burnout.

For large projects involving many external parties, Instagantt provides the possibility to securely share timelines and communicate the progress to the stakeholders.

Avaza

Why should large teams consider it:

• Scalable collaboration
• All-in-one nature

Avaza was built to solve a real-life internal challenge of a company related to project management, invoicing, and collaboration. These days it has become a tool that is used in many organizations as a business management platform with strong Gantt chart capabilities. This approach makes it particularly suitable for large teams that need this combination of project management, billing, expenses, and client management.

The unified platform removes the integration challenges that large teams often have while trying to connect multiple separate tools. Time tracking, expenses, and invoicing all connect directly to project tasks that are displayed on the Gantt chart.

Large teams can configure role-based permissions to control access to tasks and projects. Administrators can define which team members can edit and work on projects, and which one can just view their assignments.

A client portal allows large teams to select and share certain project information with external stakeholders. Project managers can also connect financial management directly to project timelines, and monitor costs together with progress. These possibilities are particularly valued by organizations managing multiple budgets and client projects simultaneously.

Conclusion

While choosing the right Gantt chart software for your large team, don’t just focus on fancy timelines. Go for a solution that can scale, make collaboration more effective, and create a coherent system of projects out of any amount and complexity of tasks. Tools like GanttPRO, Microsoft Project, Teamdeck, Instagantt, and Avaza, offer a unique combination of features that can be easily adapted to big cross-functional teams. Choose the one that fits best in your process and will see the difference.