Outlining the benefits of project management software vs Excel
Whilst Excel may be an adequate project management tool for short projects or smaller organisations looking to keep track of simple figures & timelines, spreadsheet-based PMOs are, in many ways, limited in functionality and capability; often hindering growth in their limitations, with pre-built and purpose built project management tools serving to open up a wealth of opportunities at both team & project level(s). Here, we’ll explore the benefits of project management software vs Excel.
Project management software vs Excel
Excel is a fantastic tool for tracking project data, automating sums, and understanding variables; offering powerful number-based functionality and the invaluable ability to easily create visual aids such as graphs.
As such, there’s no denying that Excel has a prominent place in the ever-changing and challenging world of project management – offering much of what a project manager or PMO needs to track and monitor simple and/or small project portfolios, driven by small teams.
But what happens when your team gets bigger and your project portfolio grows, becoming more complex,more distributed and challenging to manage?
This is where Excel-based PMOs will start to experience issues; project data housed within an Excel spreadsheet is not easily accessed by multiple users, making collaboration between teams and team members extremely difficult thus forcing teams to keep multiple versions of the same [copy ‘n’ paste] spreadsheet on individual logins/computers.
This inevitably leads to a mismatch in data, difficulty in collating correct and up-to-date data for reports & meetings, and overall miscommunication, as well as the general struggle of simply keeping said data up-to-date to begin with!
Where PMO software takes over
This is just one of many reasons why Sycamore Gap’s PMO solution exists; to provide users with one-click dashboard reporting, real-time updates, and automatic notifications, audit logs, and workflows to maintain consistent processes.
Alongside this, our PMO offers simplified admin and governance with role based access for enhanced safety and security, all in a low cost, low code solution that – as a result – requires minimal training time.
To learn more about our PMO and how it can benefit you & your team, please click here, book a demo or – for regular updates – sign up to our email newsletter.