Gantt Charts in Jira

[#1]

Jira is great for managing tasks within a project. However, program managers who oversee multiple teams, in multiple Jira spaces, need a tool for tracking dependencies, aligning releases, and scheduling upcoming work across multiple projects.

Gantt charts continue to play a valuable role in project management, even in agile organizations. Using Gantt charts in Jira offers a visual way to connect short-term sprint work with long-term goals, helping teams and high-level stakeholders stay synced.

Why Gantt Charts Still Matter in the Age of Agile

While Agile methodologies focus on continuous delivery, flexibility, and responsiveness, they still need structure. Gantt charts provide that structure by showing how sprints, epics, and releases align over time.

They’re especially useful for:

• Reporting to stakeholders: Showing progress and delivery timelines

• Strategic alignment: Keeping teams day-to-day work aligned with the organization’s long-term goals

• Coordinating multiple teams: Visualizing how dependent work streams across multiple Jira projects and teams, interact

Using Gantt Charts in Addition to Jira Agile Boards

Agile boards in Jira can show items from multiple projects, and let teams visualize the status of their work. Complementing your board with a Gantt chart adds a temporal element, letting you see upcoming work on a timeline. The Gantt chart automatically updates to reflect any changes made on work items, and Gantt charts are particularly useful for surfacing dependencies.

Along with showing a big picture timeline, Gantt charts can help agile teams visualize sprints and releases and forecast delivery times, making them an ideal tool both for team planning and reporting to upper-level stakeholders.

Using Gantt Charts in Hybrid Jira Projects

Some teams use traditional project management tools – like Gantt charts – for planning, while remaining agile in execution. For these hybrid projects, a Jira Gantt chart is the ideal tool for linking detailed task tracking with high-level scheduling. This allows you to:

• Outline major phases and milestones

• Represent sprints as time blocks within broader goals

• Track dependencies and releases across departments

• Communicate progress to leadership while maintaining autonomy at the team level

The result is a shared understanding of both strategy and execution.

Using Gantt Charts in Jira

Jira Plans (formerly Jira Advanced Roadmaps) is included with Jira Premium and Enterprise. It includes a Gantt-like timeline view, complete with support for custom hierarchies, capacity and dependency management.

 

Jira Gantt Chart Marketplace Plugins / Apps

If your organization isn’t on the Jira Premium or Enterprise plan, you can find a Gantt chart app in the Atlassian Marketplace.

Things to Look for in a Jira Gantt Chart App

Shopping for a Gantt Chart app in the Atlassian Marketplace? Here are a few things to consider in your search:

• Gantt-only or All-in-one PPM app – The Marketplace includes Gantt chart apps, as well as apps that combine Gantt charts with other project and portfolio management tools. To get more bang for your buck, choose an app that offers broad planning functionality such as delivery alerts, Gantt charts, and capacity planning.

• Live sync with Jira work items – Items in the Gantt chart app should sync with Jira in real time. This lets you update Jira work item estimates directly from the Gantt interface.

• Shareable views – Since Gantt charts are especially useful to high level stakeholders who need to see how multiple teams' work fits together, you’ll want to select app that allows you to share a Gantt chart view.

• Runs on Atlassian – The “Runs on Atlassian” badge is shorthand for apps that operate fully within Atlassian’s infrastructure so you don’t take on the security/privacy concerns of using a third-party database.

• Installs and reviews – As always, when selecting an app from the Marketplace, look at the number of installs, and the customer reviews. This allows you to benefit from the experience of customers who have gone before you.

The recently released Advanced Edition Portfolio by HeroCoders (I am with the HeroCoders team) meets those criteria, with:

• Multi-space portfolios for a 360° view of your work in Jira

• Multiple view options (Table, Gantt chart, Graph, Pie chart, Tree Map)

• Capacity and delivery alerts

• Built-in capacity planner

• Support for custom hierarchies

Gantt charts remain an important item in the PPM toolbox, granting project and program managers the ability to visualize their teams work – with all of its dependencies – over time. Providing Gantt charts to high level stakeholders helps set realistic expectations and timelines, without drowning them in of every Sprint. Gantt charts serve as a roadmap, providing clarity and coordination across multiple Jira projects and teams.