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Sick of Microsoft Project? Manage
Your Project in Excel
Contributed by Priyank Pandey on May 17, 2013 in Information Technology , Operations & Supply Chain
Project management is not easy. Keeping track of deadlines, status, risks, issues, and
competing priorities is not piece of cake. There are hundreds of articles and management
gurus out there with tips and advice on effective project management. However, few (that I
have seen) provide tools to put the ideas they provide into action.
While a good PM tool does not guarantee success, a bad one guarantees frustration and
increases chance of failure. The de facto management tool in the industry is MS Project. But
unfortunately when I have used MS Project, I end up focusing more on keeping MS Project
documents running smoothly, rather than the project itself. It feels like working with a
complex home theater system: you spend more time fiddling with the settings and re
positioning the speakers rather than enjoying the movie.
My biggest problems with MS Project are:
1. Speed – When working with MS Project, expect long load times, slow updates, and
frequent crashes.
2. Compatibility – Many people do not have MS Project loaded on their computers by
default. So, when working with MS Project, I either have to acquire licenses for all
stakeholders (and this can be quite expensive) or make sure I export all my work into
PDF/Excel (also a slow process).
3. User Friendliness – There is definitely a learning curve new users will have to
climb before getting comfortable with MS Project. But even now, after using the
software on multiple projects and having been to multiple training sessions, I find it
can be hard to figure out the simplest of things. Also, many of the hotkeys that are
standard across MS PowerPoint, MS Excel, and MS Word are not transferable to MS
Project.
About a year ago I got so frustrated with MS Project, I decided to start working with Excel.
While Excel does not support all the functionality that MS Project provides, it more than
sufficiently satisfies the basic requirements of any project management tool. Excel is also far
more customizable and compatible than MS Project, allowing me to build reports and share
my work more easily with others.
I recently uploaded a Project Management Tool , built in Excel, to flevy.com . I have
gathered some of the most useful functions/templates I have built in the past and
condensed them into one document. The tool includes:
Overview of a project management Framework I have used in the past.
The ability to document and connect requirements, projects, and tasks.
Fully functional and automatic Gantt Chart.
Built in program level completion and heat map reporting functionality.
Aside from the author’s Excel-based Project Management Tool , Flevy offers a number of other PM tools and
methodologies, including: (Alternate) Excel-based Project Management Tool , Excel-based Project Prioritization Tool
, and PRINCE2 Project Management Overview .
Although not as deep in functionality as MS Project, I find tools like this are far easier to use
and manage, allowing me to focus on the project at hand. Most importantly, I can easily
customize these documents to best fit the project’s needs.
About Priyank Pandey
Priyank is a Management Consultant, specializing in Risk Management. He has worked across multiple
industries, including banking, capital markets, and healthcare. He is also the author of the blog Writing In
Transit where he writes about his experiences as a consultant and his pursuit of an MBA.
Flevy (www.flevy.com) is the marketplace for premium documents. These documents can range from Business Frameworks to Financial Models to PowerPoint Templates. Flevy was founded under the principle that companies waste a lot of time and money recreating the same foundational businessdocuments. Our vision is for Flevy to become a comprehensive knowledge base of business documents. All rganizations, from startups to large enterprises, can use Flevy— whether it's to jumpstart projects, to find reference or comparison materials, or just to learn.
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