# The illusion of Gantt

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This post was originally written in Italian and translated using AI. If you notice any translation errors or unclear passages, please let me know.

[🇮🇹 Read the original post in Italian](/lillusione-di-gantt/)
{{< /admonition >}}



If someone asked you “**How long does it take to get to Amsterdam from Rome traveling 🚶 on foot?**” would you be able to provide an accurate estimate? You could probably give a rough evaluation, but in reality, even after a few days of walking, you wouldn’t be able to give precise details.

In project management, the concept expressed above often gets crystallized inside a **roadmap**. And here’s where time, resources, and the number of “things to do” inevitably end up inside the famous **Gantt chart**. The result?

* The product manager is happy because they get the answer to their question “how long will it take?”
* The project manager is happy because they can estimate costs based on resource usage.
* The team is happy because they have a vision of the macro-activities spread over time.

All good? No, it’s **PURE ILLUSION!**

They’re all simply walking toward a distant goal with an empirical approximation and, at the first difficulty, the *Castle of Gantt* will have to be rebuilt from scratch because of a single change!

The difference with Agile planning is **not committing to horizons you can’t yet see**. If this statement seems to clash with your beliefs, don’t blame yourself — you simply **don’t know Agile planning**.