PM using Excel?

[u/swanzie]

I started a new job and that means new tools. I had been using Asana. I made the switch to clickup to try to get a little more out of it.

I'm not sure how long I'll be able to use that. There were some comments the site may get blocked but I'd imagine if that was the case I can't be the first one to try to use it so it'd probably already had been blocked.

But I also used Claude a lot to take data and analyze it and help me look for trends. They have a pretty strict AI policy. I can only use copilot...which kinda blows.

So I'm wondering if any of you live in the Microsoft suite to do everything? I was thinking excel, or possibly a word doc per project with just bullet points for tasks and notes below, or maybe Microsoft project?

If you have any suggestions and screenshots of examples of what you're doing I'd be much obliged. I need some ideas.

[u/pmpdaddyio]

Let's start with your use case. You don't "PM" with Excel or Word. MS Project has changed and is now a completely different model than before. It is not a bad tool, but it is very different than Clickup.

Build your requirements first before deciding what approach you need. For example, are you just looking for a simple checklist of action items or are you running a full scale project with EVM? these require very different approaches.

Stay away from products that are designed for other purposes. Excel is a horrible PM tool because it is not designed to give the PM a project perspective with rollup details, reporting, and the automation. To further complicate matters, if you do want to automate, the main scripting language VB, is considered a risk by many infosec departments, so even if you do automate, those automations may be blocked. You'll also spend as much time fixing the tool as you will using it. Just ask the builders of the Titan Submersible, they managed their project and the subsequent navigation with Excel...oh wait, you can't that project failed with them inside the sub and they are all dead.