Grant Gantt chart designer
Plan work packages, activities, milestones, and finish-to-start dependencies for fellowship and project grants. Add mitigation / contingency bars for alternative approaches if a primary activity fails a go/no-go gate. Export a light-background figure as SVG, JPEG, or PDF.
Project window
Activities
Duration and lag are in months. Dependencies are finish-to-start. For a mitigation row, set kind to Mitigation, choose which primary activity it mitigates, and optionally a decision lag after that activity ends.
| Name | Kind | Duration | Work package | Depends on | Lag | Mitigates | Decision lag | Fixed start |
|---|
Preview
Grant Gantt tips
Mitigation strategies on the chart
Reviewers look for realistic risk handling. Add a dashed mitigation bar linked to the risky primary activity (e.g. “if CRISPR KO fails → siRNA / pharmacological backup”). Schedule it to start after a go/no-go milestone or decision lag so the figure shows when you would pivot without implying you will run both paths in full by default. Keep mitigations lean (shorter duration) and note them in the risk table of the proposal text.
Keep the figure readable
- Aim for 8–15 rows; fold tiny tasks into work-package bars.
- Use milestones (◆) for deliverables, reports, and ethics approvals.
- Align colours with WP numbers used in the Case for Support.
- Show dependencies sparingly — only where sequence is scientifically required.
Critical path and float
The highlighted critical path is the zero-float chain among primary activities. Mitigations are excluded from that calculation so a contingency does not look “required.” If the schedule overruns the funded period, shorten non-critical work or move tasks earlier before submission.
Export for funders
Use SVG for slides and vector editing, PDF for appendices, and JPEG for Word/Google Docs figures. Charts render on a white background for print.
How scheduling works
Each activity starts when all finish-to-start predecessors have finished (plus lag), unless a fixed start month is set. Mitigation activities also wait until their linked primary activity ends, plus an optional decision lag (time for a go/no-go). Everything runs locally in your browser.