Excel Templates For Efficient Project Management And Tracking
Project management is by no means a simple feat. On top of making critical decisions and ensuring that all tasks are carried out correctly and on time, you have dozens of minute but important details to keep an eye on and pay attention to. The immense responsibility can overwhelm and take its toll on anyone, especially first-timers. From creating project plans and timelines to Gantt charts, there’s bound to be an Excel template to make the task more convenient. This article puts together a list of go-to Excel project management and tracking templates.
Project management is by no means a simple feat. On top of making critical decisions and ensuring that all tasks are carried out correctly and on time, you have dozens of minute but important details to keep an eye on and pay attention to. The immense responsibility can overwhelm and take its toll on anyone, especially first-timers.
Every project manager needs an arsenal of project management tools for efficiency and accuracy of data. And when it comes to data management and organization, even the experts rely on ready-to-use Excel templates for most small-to-medium-scale project management.
From creating project plans and timelines to Gantt charts, there’s bound to be an Excel template to make the task more convenient. Below is a compilation of some of our go-to Excel project management and tracking templates:
1. Simple Gantt Chart
A must-have template for beginners, this simplified and easy-to-use version of the Gantt chart will help you oversee the different aspects of your current project. The spreadsheet includes a feature that displays, tracks, and analyzes the rate of your progress based on the start and target completion date you set.
2. Kanban Board Template
Kanban boards are useful for collaborations among team members. Traditional Kanban boards use handwritten notes that are stuck on the board to keep everybody else updated on the group and individual progress.
This Excel-based Kanban board uses the same concept discussed above, but more efficiently because everything’s done and shared online. You can edit, color-code, or move the Excel cells around to indicate which tasks or phases of the project you’re on. A hassle-free way to keep everyone in the loop!
3. Project Plan Template
This template allows you to plan project tasks and subtasks in detail, which helps ensure that they are completed as planned and on time.
You can customize the Project Planner template to hold all data and information necessary to the project’s proper and timely completion. It also includes a unique comparison feature that analyzes your current progress against your target completion date, so you can quickly check if things on or falling behind schedule.
4. Project Timeline Template
This Excel template comes handy, especially when managing projects that run on a tight schedule. It keeps everyone on top of important deadlines and critical milestones, so everything moves and progresses according to plan.
The Project Timeline template allows everybody on the team to track every task in the project closely, which helps prevent errors and delays. Whether you’re managing projects for a small start-up or sizeable company, this tool proves itself useful for projects of any scale.
5. Issue Tracker Template
Projects don’t always go as expected. Problems occur; delays are still a possibility, and they can have a significant impact on overall productivity. That said, anybody who’s in charge of overseeing projects needs a tool that will help them identify issues as soon as possible.
The Issue Tracker Template is a valuable addition to your collection of Excel project management and tracking templates. You’ll find it extremely useful for detecting hitches in the project before they get worse.
6. KPI Tracking Template
Last but not the least – another must-have to any project manager’s arsenal of Excel templates is the KPI tracker. This spreadsheet is one of the best tools for measuring how well you and your team are hitting your marks.
Aside from giving you an accurate picture of how you’re doing relative to your set deadlines and milestones, this KPI tracking template also allows you to conveniently track and share reports and essential data with your group. This will enable you to adjust or change your strategy accordingly.
Project managers deal with so many things daily. With so many responsibilities on their shoulders, they deserve access to useful tools that will somehow make the load lighter.
The templates we’ve mentioned above are but a handful of the hundreds of pre-made Excel templates available online for tracking, organizing, and streamlining projects of different scales. The Internet has a vast range of project management tools, and they’re just a few clicks away.
Whether you’re a pro or a newbie in the field, Excel is an indispensable ally!
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