Monthly Gantt chart template

• 5 groups
• 29 tasks
• 5 milestones
• 24 dependencies
• 6 months
• Updated October 2, 2026

When do you need a monthly chart rather than a weekly one?

When the work runs for months and the useful question is what lands in which month, not what happens on Tuesday. A monthly Gantt chart shows how several pieces of work overlap across half a year, and where one of them waiting on another moves a date you have already promised.

If the plan is one or two weeks of work, measured in days, the weekly project plan is the better fit. The two work well together: this chart for the half-year, the weekly one for the week in front of you.

What is planned across the six months?

Four workstreams that a small team could realistically carry at once, plus a review row at the top. Each one starts when the one it depends on allows, so the busy months are visible before you get to them.

As in the weekly template, the owner is written at the front of every task name (Lead, Ops, Writer, Designer or Dev), because a copied template has no people in it. Swap each role for a first name when you copy it.

How do you read the chart month by month?

Switch the timescale to Month. The months run across the top with the weeks underneath, so every bar reads as a number of weeks and you can see at a glance which month each piece of work falls in.

• Month is the working view. It is where the preview opens, and the one to keep on screen at the month-end review.
• Quarter is the view to show someone. Each month becomes a single column, which is easier to read for a client or a board who wants the shape of the half-year rather than the weeks.
• Fit view sizes it for you. It picks the most detailed timescale that still shows the whole plan, which is handy after you have added a few months.

Why is most work measured in whole weeks?

Because six months out, a week is about as precise as an honest estimate gets. A task planned to the day in month five looks exact on the chart and is really a guess, and a chart full of precise guesses is harder to trust than one that admits where it is rough.

Most work bars run in whole weeks. Reviews, milestones, calendar-day waits and the campaign start are exceptions. When a month gets close, break its bars into smaller tasks if the team needs them, or plan those weeks on the weekly template. The Estimate column keeps the effort separate from the window: the website build has a four-week bar and about 60 hours of work in it.

Some bars are waiting rather than work. The new hire's notice period and the 30-day customer notice period have no effort estimate, because their length is elapsed time rather than hours of work. It is still on the chart, because the start date cannot come earlier than the end of that bar.

Where do the workstreams wait on each other?

In three places, and they are the reason to keep the workstreams on one chart rather than four separate plans.

1. The pricing page waits for the new website. It is built on the new site, so it cannot start until the site is live, and the date the new prices take effect is linked to it.
2. The campaign content waits for the website too. The landing page lives on the new site.
3. The campaign launch waits for the support lead. A campaign that works brings questions, so the launch is linked to the end of the new hire's onboarding as well as to the content. Campaign execution then waits for that launch milestone.

The website build has a few weeks of room before anything else moves. To see what happens past that point, copy the plan, turn on Auto schedule under Settings and stretch the build by six weeks: the website launch and the pricing page move with it, and the pricing page then finishes so close to the end of the customer notice that it can push back the date the new prices take effect, a date you have already emailed customers about. That is the conversation to have in month two, not in month four.

What happens at the month-end review?

An hour with the chart on screen at Month zoom. The first review carries a short checklist, and it works for every month after it:

• Move each bar to where the work really is. A plan that still shows last month's hopes stops being read.
• Check next month's milestones. The offer, the website launch and the price date are the ones people outside the team are waiting for.
• Agree what slips if something has to. Decide it in the review, while there is still a month to adjust, rather than in the week it happens.

The reviews are spaced as if the plan starts on the first Monday of a month. Use template puts the plan on the coming Monday, so if that is mid-month, drag the review rows onto your real month ends after you copy it.

What should you change when you copy it?

Swap the four workstreams for your own, keep the review row, and replace the roles with names. If you only have two workstreams, delete the other groups rather than leaving them empty, because the chart is easier to read when every row is real.

Turn on Hide weekends under Settings if the weekend columns are a distraction at Month zoom. With weekends hidden, the 30-day customer notice bar counts 20 working days, which is about 28 calendar days, so lengthen it if your notice has to be a full 30 days. If someone needs the plan as a file, the Export menu writes a PDF, an image, Microsoft Project XML or an Excel workbook, and the Excel template page explains what ends up in the spreadsheet.