Managing Projects in one Place

posted at 14:49:13
By Flipping Heck!

Posted In
Project Management

In my new book "Managing Web Projects" I discuss the process of quoting for projects and project management techniques so I thought I'd provide an additional resource for you all (as I'm nice ;)) to tie the two subjects together in a nice, handy bundle.

Managing a project and keeping all of the information together in one place can be a right pain in the behind; We've all been there with stacks of project folders and bits of paper with FTP details floating around the place (and you can never find it when you need it of course!). Then there's the task lists, the quote and all the associated ~~stuff~~ important project resources - it can get quite a hand full.

As an antidote to this, I created the Quote/Project Planner Spreadsheet:

The spreadsheet (in Excel format) contains two sections, the above Project Details and Quote section and a tasks section. The main piece of the Project Details Section is, er... the Project details section. This allows you to select the Project manager from a drop-down list, enter start/end dates, project duration and costs.

Enter the duration of the project in this cell (in hours)
The Quote amount is automatically populated by multiplying the duration by your Cost-To-Client rate (see later)
The Cost amount is automatically populated by multiplying the duration by your Cost rate (see later)
This section shows how long is left on the project (taken from the estimated duration and tasks sheet). Green shows that you are on track, red shows that you are over the estimated duration. The cost section shows as green if you're in profit.

The Task Sheet allows you enter Milestones (features) and tasks:

And then assign estimated duration, and time spent against these tasks (the remaining hours column is calculated automatically)

This then automatically updated the main details page so you can see how you are doing with the time spent vs cost to client (green is in profit, red is at loss):

Configuring the Quote/Project Planner Spreadsheet

Firstly you should un-protect the workbook to be able to make changes. To do this go to "Tools > Protection > Unprotect Workbook":

On the Contents Tab you will see several options:

Team Members - Cells A3-A7 Can be used to enter project managers/team members. This populates the drop down lists
Status - Cells D3-D7 can be used to enter different status which populate the drop down lists
Priority - Cells A12-A16 can be used to enter different status which populate the drop down lists
Rates - This is where you set your hourly rate to the customer and cost per hour (profit per hour) to you. This populates the Quote section

You can download the Excel File from here - Please enable Macros if you want the calendar to run

For more information on Project Management and Quoting, check out my "Managing Web Projects" Book and download your free sample chapter.