Microsoft Excel is a faithful companion whenever you're juggling complex figures and dealing with data analyses, marketing calculations and budget calculations. It is also used in your private life when planning parties or the budget for a trip around the world.
However, even Excel itself would probably admit that it's not the right tool for large-scale project management. 😅
Let's take a look at why exactly Excel is not enough for modern project management and why switching to a specialized project management tool is a smart decision.
Project management with Excel - is it possible?
If you are only working on small projects, Excel comes in handy.
You can:
✅ create tasks in table form
✅ visualize statuses
✅ record results
✅ record hourly rates
✅ organize simple editorial plans
As soon as your projects grow, you will probably reach your limits, even as an Excel ninja, because Excel is simply not a project management tool.
In larger projects, it's all about coordinating overlapping projects, managing your team's resources in real time, tracking times and managing all team members smartly and happily.
This is when a specialized project management tool is not only smarter, but also more fun. I promise.
[.b-testimonial]awork is super intuitive to use and visually very appealing. It’s a lot of fun to work with and a perfect support for us. No extra effort in project management at all! 💪[.b-testimonial]
Why is Excel not suitable for complex projects?
Excel is as reliable and familiar as an old Nokia cell phone. But just as you probably have a smartphone instead of a Nokia today, there are good reasons why your project management Excel needs an upgrade.
👎 Manual entries
With Excel, you have to do everything by hand. Adding new data, inserting rows, updating formulas - this not only takes up a lot of time, but also opens the door to errors.
[.b-important-block]A modern PM tool takes this work off your hands and keeps everything up to date automatically. Every function is designed to make managing your projects easy.[.b-important-block]
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👎 No capacity planning
In Excel, you can't see at a glance who in your team is currently overloaded or still has room for improvement - this can quickly become chaotic.
Although there are Excel templates for capacity planning that you can download and customize, this is more of a stopgap solution. These templates do not offer the functionality of a specialized project management tool. Without built-in capacity planning features, you'll have to constantly intervene manually to make sure your planning is correct.
[.b-important-block]With a PM tool, you can immediately see what capacity looks like across projects and plan accurately - both in the short and long term.[.b-important-block]
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👎 Increased sources of errors
Excel is pretty unforgiving when it comes to errors and offers little help to avoid them. In large teams or with extensive projects, a small change can quickly become a big problem. One typo, one wrong click - and your project plan is full of error messages.
As Excel is document-based, there are quickly many different versions in circulation. “Excel_V1”, “Excel_V2”, etc. (we've ALL been there 😅). It is difficult to know which version is current and errors can easily occur. The same problem exists with documents shared online, which can easily be saved incorrectly.
[.b-important-block]Your PM tool helps you to avoid errors by pointing out potential sources of problems and being the single source of truth.[.b-important-block]
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👎 No real time tracking
Time tracking in Excel is _______ (insert word from annoying to old-fashioned here). Without an integrated function, you have to set up a classic manual spreadsheet in which all team members enter their hours per project or task. That's no fun!
Alternatively, you can fall back on external templates or create complicated workarounds. This makes it difficult to keep track of your team's hours. And billing customers is also tricky.
[.b-important-block]PM tools with an integrated time recording system ensure that your team's working hours are recorded accurately and easily during projects.[.b-important-block]
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👎 Unclear structure
The more your project grows, the more your project management Excel grows. It becomes confusing and suddenly you spend more time searching for information than using it. Instead of effectively investing your time in the implementation of your projects, it is consumed by endless data maintenance.
[.b-important-block]Everything in its place - your PM tool should ideally have a smart dashboard and provide you with clear and structured information so that you can find what you need quickly.[.b-important-block]
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👎 Communication? Not a chance.
Excel leaves you alone in your spreadsheet. As a project manager, you have to constantly ensure that all information is up to date. You sprint from one team member to the next and check all data and information manually.
[.b-important-block]Modern project management tools are equipped with comment functions, allow you to exchange information directly in the tasks and offer the option of sharing notifications in real time.[.b-important-block]
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👎 Skepticism among customers
Smart tools are standard these days. Confident project management demonstrates your professional and modern way of working to customers. Project management in Excel can quickly make you look like you're trying to send an Instagram post by fax (💛).
[.b-important-block]When you're sitting in workshops with your customers or working on plans together, a cool PM tool is doubly impressive. They can see how efficiently everything runs and how well thought-out your tools are.[.b-important-block]
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Uses cases from Excel that you simply do better with awork
[.toc-name]Excel use cases that are better with awork[.toc-name]
Project timelines
🐴 With Excel:
Work breakdown structure with Excel? Difficult to implement! Working with timelines in Excel can be a real test of patience. Imagine you have a large project that involves several teams and phases. Every change to a deadline or project scope means you have to adjust numerous cells, check formulas and make sure everything is linked correctly. This not only eats up time, patience and brain cells, but is also prone to errors.
🦄 With awork:
With the awork timeline, you can move tasks around using drag & drop. The dependencies are automatically adjusted. Would you like to move a deadline? No problem: Drag the task to the new date and all associated details will follow.
Resource planning
🐴 With Excel:
If you want to manage your team's availability in Excel, a lot of spreadsheets are waiting for you. You have to constantly update data and personally ensure that there are no overbookings or conflicts.
🦄 With awork:
awork makes resource planning clear and simple - after all, the project management tool was developed for this purpose. On a dashboard, you can immediately see who is available and who is already busy. You can assign resources directly to tasks and see live how changes affect the project.
Time recording and billing
🐴 With Excel:
Manual time tracking of all team members is not only time-consuming, but also an easy prey for errors. This leads to problems with project billing and future planning.
🦄 With awork:
With awork, team members can book their working time directly to specific tasks or projects. Thanks to the start-stop timer, the recording is accurate to the second and with the click & drag function in the daily or weekly view, you can plan your working time quickly and without stress. Even more practical: the calendar sync automatically converts your calendar entries into booked working times. Easy time evaluations and exports help to improve the billing process.
Always the project status on the screen
🐴 With Excel:
In Excel, you spend hours collecting data from projects, putting it into a presentable form and creating charts. Checking the project status “quickly” in between? That's not possible.
🦄 With awork:
Just a few clicks and you get a ready-to-use project status that contains all the important information. Whether you want to track progress or give team members or clients an update, awork makes it easy and time-saving.
Project management templates
🐴 With Excel:
Using Excel templates often means that you start with a very general basis. Then you usually spend some time customizing them to the specific requirements of your project. You may need to set up complex formulas in the Excel template and adjust everything manually to meet your team's needs.
🦄 With awork:
Here you will find specially developed project management templates that are tailored to different industries and project types. The templates are equipped with everything you need for effective project management - from task lists to schedules. You can get started right away with a detailed plan based on proven cases that requires hardly any adjustments.
Discover our most used project templates:
👉 Work breakdown structure template
💌 Curious to find out more?
You're not sure which software suits your case best? For informations regarding tool-switches, advice on our team-on-board-guarantee and any other questions, please reach out to our team.
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[.b-button-primary]Book a free meeting[.b-button-primary]
Goodbye, project management Excel: start agile project management now
[.toc-name]Agile project management[.toc-name]
Excel is a classic and has certainly earned its place - but not in modern project management.
Excel is about as suitable for agile project work as flip-flops are for a marathon.
awork, on the other hand, was developed specifically for modern project management in agencies, consulting and IT. It not only simplifies the daily tasks of a project manager, but also improves collaboration and happiness within the team.
Would you like to look beyond your Excel cells and test awork for free? You can! With just a few clicks. 🦄✨
[.b-button-primary] Take a look here! [.b-button-primary]
