It can’t provide each team member with his/her own to-do list of what they need to do for the project. 6.) Confusion is the norm.Įver left a team meeting wondering exactly what you are supposed to do? Excel doesn’t help that problem. It also can’t adjust to fit in new tasks. Excel has no way of showing these dependencies. With this limited detail, key steps in the process can be missed and delays in one step can push out the completion of the project, with little advanced notice. Project detiLS are often listed as a single project per row. 5.) Project details can get lost in Excel.īecause it can be cumbersome to maintain, Excel as a project management solution doesn’t work. Instead, management dashboards in project management software can offer broader picture views and reports. The detailed information in an Excel spreadsheet typically does not give a quick update. In contrast, quality project management software always has a full change log and project history. In Excel, you’ll need to create additional views and even more tabs just to summarize the roadblocks, show team workloads and project updates.įickle spreadsheets that are constantly changing hands across email or server drives are always changing–and it’s difficult to keep track of where the project was six months before, let alone years ago. Your VP is making a presentation to senior leadership and wants a project update. Your whole team can’t do those things and you become reliant on only one person or a few people for project changes. It becomes nearly impossible to track changes and alter timelines within an Excel doc, unless there’s one super user with a PhD in VLOOKUP. How is that not the ultimate in flexibility? But it’s actually quite limited. It sounds crazy, right? Any Excel sheet starts off blank. The keeper of the spreadsheet is primarily responsible for versioning and quality control. It also leads to more errors, because there is no team-wide transparency. This is time consuming, inefficient and can sour team relationships. This means that person is THAT person – the one constantly asking “are you done yet?” to other members on the team for updates. The person keeping the latest version of the Excel file usually has the burden of keeping it accurate. 2.) Project updates are inefficient in Excel. As the project continues, mistakes and missed deadlines are likely to add up. Multiple versions of a file make it increasingly difficult to know what changes to make and what to do next. Effective project management requires coordination across multiple people and teams. Managing data this way works great when flying solo, but proves problematic when the work needs review and input from coworkers. And the file is now too big to keep reloading into your shared document manager. But the latest plan in Excel is on one specific person’s computer. Projects require multiple people working on different tasks at once and then coordinating and updating statuses. h 7 Reasons Why Excel Doesn’t Work For Project Management 1. Let’s take a look at five different reasons Excel comes up short at managing crucial projects. While Excel is a great program that can benefit end users greatly in calculations, data visualization, and spreadsheet creation, applying it to project management is detrimental to the productivity of a marketing or estimating department. After all, its familiar and its “free” (no extra out of budget expenses). In some instances, businesses will use Microsoft Excel in place of targeted project management tools. However, when software is stretched to its limits and can no longer meet the needs of its users, it’s time to invest in specialized software tailored to the needs of the business and market. Software can be very versatile, so this is often a tempting route to saving some cash. One of the most common ways in which companies attempt to save on expenditures is by consolidating software purchases, using applications for multiple purposes for which they may not have originally been designed. It’s not Microsoft’s fault that Excel has become the de facto project management tool for most teams. It is the difficult job of upper management to make the tough calls as to what expenses are wasteful, and which are necessary investments in a company’s well-being. At the same time however, companies should not skimp on essential engines to drive business. Often, these moves are prudent, allowing business owners to refine and simplify their processes, eliminate waste, and preserve their employees’ livelihood. That’s why many teams turn over their project management duties to Excel. In tough times, companies cut corners on software.
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