Excel spreadsheet is a basic for project management. What is easier than listing tasks in a spreadsheet, put a name of responsible and a date. Finally, we all started a list of tasks in Excel or another spreadsheet solution. And that was very useful. Same for an action plan. Three, four columns, and it's settled, the action plan is ready.
But quickly, when you start detailing all of this, you are faced with the limits of Excel, at least in relation to all the needs of project management. Indeed, it is not in Excel that you will describe your projects, make a GANTT, or have reports from the table data. We're still doing it, but we're going to waste time copying and pasting, Powerpoint creatives in parallel, and other Word reports.
It is at this moment you have to think of the next step, a method, a suite of project management. And why not a SaaS project management tool.
What's that ? SaaS: Software As A Service. In short, an online software, ready to use, nothing to install, always available (as a service). The idea is to have a solution that will take what Excel can do, but improve it by specifying it for project management. This means that I will have a "smart" task list, which is available in real time for project actors, and which also updates in real time while still leaving the project manager in charge. And this last point is essential. If I turn my Excel sheet into a SaaS tool, I do not want to lose the hand and it is the project manager who must decide for example whether a task is completed or not. For this, you have to choose the right tool, take the time to test it, and especially check its added value compared to my good old Excel sheet. So let's start by listing what my Excel brings me :
So did the online project management application I found answer that? And if so, what else (what added value)?
It is therefore essential that this application brings other things. What are the needs of the project manager:
We could still put a few lines like this but the objective here is not to describe all the project management processes that a project manager must follow.
In short, does my project management tool bring me that? And at what price obviously.
An online project management application that responds to this is Gouti. It has the advantage of proposing a list of tasks in the spirit of an Excel spreadsheet 'intelligent'. You are not lost when arriving on the tasks list and you find all the points above and others. For instance in 3 clicks a follow-up report is generated. Arriving on Gouti, we do not have the sensation of arriving on a heavy and complex solution. No need to take training to understand the application. This project management tool is rather intuitive and pragmatic.
If you do not have this added value, you do not have to leave your good old Excel. Some call it a dinosaur, but in the meantime it is still alive ! Moreover, Gouti has understood, we can export and import its tasks in Excel. Convenient when you have trouble cutting the apron strings ;-)
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