There is no shortage of project management tools out there. They offer sleek UI, collaborative tools, automation, and other add-ons to justify the asking price. While these options have their merits, there is a powerful, often overlooked tool hiding in plain sight on your computer: Microsoft Excel.

With its surprising versatility, affordability, and customizability, Excel can empower you to effectively plan, track, and execute projects seamlessly with your team. Here are the top reasons why Excel deserves a second look for your project management needs.

7 Customization and flexibility

Whether you use Trello, Asana, Airtable, or Jira, you must understand their methods and follow a rigid structure to manage your projects. Excel is completely the opposite in this regard. When you open a new blank workbook, you are the creator, and you can utilize endless rows and columns to meet your exact needs.

Excel’s adaptability extends to formulas and functions, allowing you to automate calculations, track key metrics, and even set up alerts for upcoming deadlines or budget overruns. Overall, you are not limited to a one-size-fits-all solution where you won’t have much freedom to mold the tool to your project’s unique demands.

6 A rich template collection for project management

Here is where Excel truly shines as a project management tool. Microsoft offers dozens of project management templates, and if these don’t fit in your workflow, then you can always download third-party ones from the web. Whether you are managing a simple task list, tracking a complex project timeline with dependencies, or creating a detailed budget, there's likely a template that will help you get up and running quickly.

These templates come with ready-to-use elements like task lists, Gantt charts, allocation tables, and even progress trackers, saving you valuable time and effort. And remember, you can combine templates into one workbook which has multiple sheets from different sources!

5 A range of charts to track projects

Excel's data visualization capabilities go far beyond simple spreadsheets. As expected, Excel offers a robust toolkit of chart types that can be invaluable for visualizing and communicating project information. Gantt charts, for instance, clearly display project timelines, task dependencies, and milestones, giving a pristine overview of the entire project schedule.

You can also try burn-down charts to glance over the total amount of work completed against time and better predict accurate deadlines for the project tasks. Pie charts can effectively illustrate budget allocation across different segments, while stacked bar charts might compare planned versus actual effort for each project phase. It’s entirely up to you to explore different charts for your project requirements.

You can even create a central visualization dashboard in a separate sheet where you can arrange all your charts effectively in one place.

4 Automation with conditional formatting

Excel's conditional formatting feature brings a level of automation and visual clarity to your projects. You can create different rules for your entire workbook. For example, as you update task statuses or expense amounts, your spreadsheet automatically adapts its appearance to reflect those changes.

You can set rules where tasks nearing their deadlines turn red, or budget lines nearing their allocated amounts are highlighted yellow. This instant visual feedback helps you instantly identify potential issues, prioritize tasks, and keep your project on track. You no longer need to review hundreds of rows and columns to understand the situation.

3 Project management features

Granted, Excel isn’t a dedicated project management tool, but it surprisingly packs a decent amount of features to help you manage your projects with ease. You can break down a large project into different tasks, and use data validation to create a custom status list like ‘In Progress,’ ‘Delayed,’ ‘Completed,’ ‘Skipped,’ and more.

Furthermore, you can create a separate sheet just for project budgeting. After all, managing finances will be critical to project success. Excel provides the tools to track expenses, allocate resources (like personnel or equipment) to different tasks, and monitor costs against your budget. This helps prevent overspending and ensures that your team is using resources efficiently.

2 Robust collaboration tools

While the real-time collaboration in Excel isn’t as intuitive as Google Sheets, it gets the job done. Once your project workbook is ready with multiple sheets, share it with your team members with different permissions (edit, view, etc.) where they can optionally make live updates to the workbook. You can even password-protect and set an expiration date for your shared workbook links.

1 Accessibility and cost-effectiveness

These are the most compelling reasons to consider Excel for project management. It is available on all platforms you can think of. Besides, Excel is already a part of your Microsoft 365 package, and you don’t need to shell out extra money for a dedicated project management tool. For individuals and small businesses, this affordability is a major advantage.

Keep your projects on track

While dedicated project management software certainly has its place, you can’t completely rule out Excel. It’s a viable option for managing a wide range of projects, especially for individuals and small teams. So, the next time you are starting a new project, consider giving Excel a try – you might just be surprised at how effectively this familiar tool can help you achieve your project goals.

Excel’s versatility goes beyond project management. Here are some of the cool projects you can do with just Excel.