Project management is an essential part of any software development process. To keep your team organized, you might not need to look any further than Microsoft Excel. In this guide, we’ll reveal some of Excel’s most valuable project management features and share tips for making the most of the versatile spreadsheet software. Whether you’re an experienced project manager, a developer who needs to track progress, bugs, and tasks, or you’re just getting started, you’ll discover how Excel can help you manage your projects more effectively at a minimal cost.
When to Use Excel for Managing Projects
With so many project management software options on the market, you might be wondering why or when you should use Microsoft Excel. Here are a few reasons why Excel might work as a project management tool for your needs:
- If you’re a solo developer or part of a small team:
- Excel can provide the necessary foundation for managing projects of this type without overwhelming you with advanced features you may never use.
- If you want a simple solution with a very low learning curve:
- Some project management software is feature-rich but also requires a significant amount of time to train and learn the software. With Excel, project managers can choose simple spreadsheets that meet their needs and fill them with data to create task lists, track hours/inventory, and more.
- If you or your software development team is on a tight budget:
- Depending on the team size and features offered, some project management software can cost thousands of dollars per month and eat into your profits. With Excel, you can get the essential project management capabilities your team needs for a minimal investment. If your organization already has access to Microsoft Office, you can virtually use Excel for free. Otherwise, you can purchase access with a Microsoft 365 subscription that includes Excel, Word, PowerPoint, OneDrive, and Outlook, starting at €6.99 per month.
You can dive deeper into this Microsoft Office 365 review to learn more.
When to Use Excel Alternatives for Project Management
Is Microsoft Excel the ideal project management solution for every team? Certainly not, which is why there are many other project management software alternatives out there. Here’s a short list of reasons why you might prefer project management software over Excel, followed by a more detailed explanation:
- If you have more than five employees working on a project:
- Project management software has the upper hand over Excel for teams of more than five employees or those that are constantly growing. The larger your team grows, the more moving parts it will have, making it difficult to manage projects with simple Excel spreadsheets as you add components. A perfect example of when you might outgrow Excel is if you need to manage a lot of data. As data grows and your spreadsheets become unmanageable, finding essential information can take a lot of time. And if you need to share that data with external stakeholders, they might find Excel’s presentation style too dated or inefficient.
- If your team works with large datasets:
- Excel can assist with basic calculations, but project management software might be the better choice as your team and projects grow and calculations become more complex. Even the smallest data entry error in Excel could lead to inaccurate results that send your project into crisis. To be safe, project management software that makes data entry near-automatic and offers seamless calculations might be a better fit.
- If you want additional features, such as views, Gantt charts, built-in collaboration tools, or third-party integrations:
- Project managers might choose project management software over Excel if they want access to additional features. While we’ll offer examples of how Excel can help you manage projects, you may want more than it can offer to enjoy additional features like quote management, job tracking, etc. And if team collaboration is key, then you might certainly look for project management software rather than Excel, as Microsoft’s offering falls short in this area.
- If your tasks require complex calculations:
- Excel can assist with basic calculations, but project management software can be the better choice as your team and projects grow and calculations become more complex. Even the smallest data entry error in Excel could lead to inaccurate results that send your project into crisis. To be safe, project management software that makes data entry near-automatic and offers seamless calculations might be a better fit.
- If Excel negatively impacts your budget:
- Shortfalls with the spreadsheet software, such as missing deadlines or letting vital tasks slip through the cracks, might mean it’s time to switch to more advanced project management software that streamlines workflows and reduces errors.
Some of the top project management tools we recommend include:
- Asana
- Wrike
- Monday
- Nifty
- Microsoft Project
How to Manage Projects with Excel
Project management involves planning, organizing, and tracking tasks, resources, timelines, and budgets. Microsoft Excel is a powerful tool that can be used to manage projects of all sizes and complexities, though it works best for smaller teams and projects. From creating project plans and timelines to tracking budgets and milestones, Excel can help project managers stay organized and on track throughout the entire project lifecycle. Here are a few ways you can use Excel for project management:
Create Task Lists in Your Spreadsheet
You can create simple to-do lists in Excel to manage your daily tasks as a project manager. Or you can use the spreadsheet software to create a task list (or download a template) for your team to track their progress and ensure everything is completed as intended.
Excel task lists can be extremely simple or surprisingly advanced. To take the simpler route, create a spreadsheet containing all the necessary details like task name, assignee, description, due date, resources needed, and so on. At the other end of the spectrum are more advanced task lists with automation.
Map Project Plans with Gantt Charts
Creating a visual timeline in Excel and mapping project plans can become a breeze. You can create one of the most popular project management tools, the Gantt chart, in Excel to map out tasks and get an immediate snapshot of start dates, durations, and how they compare to each other in terms of importance.
If you’re experienced with Excel, you can build your own custom timeline from scratch. Otherwise, you can take the simpler route and download a template. Excel has plenty of timeline and Gantt chart templates, etc., that you can download to get the functionality you need with minimal effort.
Track Projects
Project managers can track progress in Excel by creating a spreadsheet with columns for project name, task, assignee, duration, budget, etc. You can visualize each field to understand if your project is on track or where it’s falling short so that you can make the necessary adjustments to avoid issues that can delay delivery. And while a glance at your spreadsheet can provide a basic overview of project progress, you can improve the situation by using your data to create eye-catching and easy-to-understand charts that simplify the situation and can be shared with others.
Track Resources in Excel
Whether it’s personnel, equipment, or physical materials to keep an eye on, Excel can assist with resource management. Create a spreadsheet to keep track of all your project’s resources or break it down into multiple sheets. Regardless of how you go about it, Excel can ensure your project’s resources aren’t spread too thin when you need them most.
Track Time and Timesheets
Excel makes it incredibly easy to track time, whether you want to create or download ready-made timesheets or see how long it takes to complete specific tasks. This way, the software can assist project managers in ensuring their teams are efficient and can also help with billing, especially if clients pay by the hour. Even as simple as it is, tracking time in Excel can allow for more accurate project time estimates and deliverable forecasts.
Create a Project Budget with Excel
It’s no secret that Excel is ideal for calculations, and project managers can use the software to create budgets with relative ease for small to medium-sized projects. As you move toward larger and more complex projects, you may find Excel’s budgeting capabilities to be somewhat limited. Otherwise, the software should be sufficient for tracking revenue versus expenses and even adding some details to help manage your project’s finances.
Reporting
Excel has reporting capabilities that can assist project managers, too. Once all your data is entered, you can create custom analyses and reports to gauge project performance. While generating reports in Excel might not be as straightforward as with other project management software, the capability is there.
Takeaways on Using Excel for Project Management
In this guide, we reviewed cases where it would make sense to use Excel as a project management tool, including if you are a solo developer or in a small team, if you want a PM solution that is easy to use and set up, or if your team is on a limited budget. We also discussed situations where it would make more sense to use traditional project management tools. These include scenarios where you have a larger or growing team, want more third-party integrations and features, or if you have large datasets that require a robust user interface.
We also touched on the ways you can use Excel as project management software, including creating reports, tracking time, managing budgets, managing tasks, and tracking resources and projects.
Finally, we listed a few alternatives to Microsoft Excel for project management, including Asana, Wrike, Monday, Nifty, and Microsoft Project.
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