If your company operates on a project basis, it’s highly likely that from the very beginning you’ve relied on folder structures and Excel for project management. This approach has worked well so far when you had only a few employees.
But now, as your team grows and the number of projects increases, the projects also become larger and more complex. It is no longer as easy to manage projects manually as before. The “logic” behind the folder structures and spreadsheets has become increasingly difficult to maintain.
Do you recognize this in your company? If so, you’re not alone. Many small businesses quickly outgrow managing projects using Excel and folder structures.
In this article, we take a closer look at the most common signs that managing projects with folder structures and spreadsheets is no longer the right solution for a growing business.
6 Signs That You Have Outgrown Excel and Folder Structures
1. You Spend Unnecessarily Much Time Searching for Information
Since you use folder structures and spreadsheets for projects, you end up with vast amounts of data scattered across different folders. As a result, you often spend a significant amount of time searching for specific documents and/or files needed to move the project forward.
The information gathered so far in the project is often left in various folder structures. Consequently, when a new phase starts, it becomes difficult to update what has been done and what, for example, has been agreed upon with customers and suppliers.
This "steals" focus and valuable time that you and your employees could use on more value-adding tasks.
2. You Don’t Know Who Did What or Which File Is the Latest
When several people in the company work on the same file or document simultaneously, coordinating the project work and maintaining version control becomes challenging.
Who is currently working on which document? Which version of the file is actually the newest? And what happens if you need to restore a previous version?
Having multiple copies of documents or files scattered across different folders often results in working with outdated versions. As a result, you get delayed access to updated, project-critical information. In the worst case, outdated and incorrect information gets propagated throughout the project.
3. The Data No Longer Has Sufficient Quality
As you take on more projects, it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain a consistent and easily accessible data structure. For example, Excel offers limited support for data validation and quality assurance.
This increases the risk of inaccurate data, data duplication, and other quality issues that can negatively affect collaboration, information sharing, and decision-making processes in your business.
Employees may have created duplicate files and placed them in different folders, leading to confusion and challenges related to version control and data consistency.
4. You Have Become Vulnerable to Human Error
Working on projects with folder structures and Excel means you’ve likely experienced files being misplaced and errors occurring during manual data entry.
Over time, this has led to a deterioration in data integrity, making it unreliable. Moreover, errors made in projects five or six iterations ago have often carried over into current projects.
What impact have these issues had on your analyses, reports, and decision-making during project work?
5. Project Management Has Become Person-Dependent
Imagine being in the final stretch of a project with multiple departments working hard to meet an imminent deadline – and then the inevitable happens: a key project team member falls ill and is absent indefinitely.
If you’ve experienced a similar situation, you have likely felt how challenging and chaotic it can be to manage projects using folder structures and Excel.
What exactly did you agree on with the customer for this project? What’s the latest status? And where are the notes from the last status meeting?
The necessary information to get an overview and pick up the thread is scattered across multiple documents and files. You realize you must embark on a “scavenger hunt” through folders and spreadsheets—right at the moment when you must meet an important deadline for the customer.
And what about that key person who, unfortunately, fell ill in the midst of this critical phase? You can only imagine the stress they face…
If your project management relies on specific individuals at every level, it’s a clear sign that you have outgrown managing projects with spreadsheets and folder structures.
6. It Has Become Difficult to Get an Overall Overview
As the projects in your company have grown more complex, it’s become harder to maintain complete oversight and control. How far have you really progressed? Are there tasks falling behind schedule?
You need to perform comprehensive analyses, generate reports, and identify trends across multiple projects. However, this is difficult when you manage projects with Excel and folder structures, dedicating too much time and resources to it.
You end up using multiple spreadsheets for different parts of the project, forcing you to jump back and forth between them. You lack an overview of who has done what, or whether tasks have been completed on time. Moreover, you cannot see at a high level whether tasks have been finished. Simply put: With a robust project management system, you make everything cloud and clear.
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Project management using folder structures and Excel makes it challenging to scale your business
Can you continue to manage projects with folder structures and spreadsheets as you grow? Certainly – you’ve managed so far. But when you’re setting up for further growth and facing new, more complex customer demands, the question becomes whether you’re really served by this approach.
Projects you can currently manage relatively well will soon become challenging to handle as your business grows and the volume of data increases. This raises the risk that you might not maintain the same level of oversight and quality in your projects.
And not least: if your project management is manual and cumbersome, you might even have to decline some projects because your capacity is insufficient.
What should you use instead of Excel and folder structures for project management?
Switch to a project management system specifically designed to provide businesses with better oversight, structure, and collaboration at every stage of a project.
- All information related to each project is gathered in one place.
- It becomes easy to collaborate with various parts of the organization.
- You no longer waste time on duplicate data entry across different systems or searching for documents and files.
- You gain full visibility over project progress and next steps, saving valuable time on status meetings.
- Data is presented and visualized at an executive level, providing a complete overview of everything related to, for example, customers and suppliers.
- You can more easily work in accordance with your company’s best practices, as lessons from past projects are documented and implemented.
- You make better use of the resources you already have, since you waste less time.
In short: With a good project management system, you make things "cloud and clear".