Visualizing Certainty: What the Cultural History of the Gantt Chart Teaches Technical and Professional Communicators about Management

ABSTRACT

Using a cultural-historical genre analysis of the Gantt chart, the author describes how, when a project’s progress and scope are being considered, this popular project management visualization evokes managerial values of certainty and simplicity. These values, instantiated in early 20th-century scientific management philosophy, are made visually manifest in Henry L. Gantt’s popular chart. These charts require technical and professional communicators to gauge the rhetorical implications of using them when providing their expertise in communicating project management.

KEYWORDS:

• Cultural-historical analysis
• Gantt charts
• project management
• scientific management

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Vincent D. Robles

Vincent D. Robles is an assistant professor of technical communication at the University of North Texas. His research interests are technical support, technical editing, discourse and content analysis, and technical and professional communication pedagogy.