From spreadsheets to “proper planning”

Still using Excel to manage your project planning? You’re not alone, but you might be heading for trouble. From messy data to broken formulas and corrupted files, spreadsheets only take you so far. In this post, we explore why it's worth trading the patchwork approach for a proper planning tool like Primavera—and how the jump from “just about works” to “works every time” might be easier than you think.

Are your organisations one of the many stuck using an Excel spreadsheet to deliver your planning and scheduling? Here’s why managing your projects using a $100 tool might not be the wisest move…

Where it can all go wrong!

We get it, Excel can be a simple tool that you can “configure” yourself to suit your growing business needs. It’s a tool almost everybody knows how to use and doesn’t come with any real costs attached to it. If we’re honest, it can be a powerful solution in the short term, but here’s where it can all go wrong…

By using an Excel spreadsheet, you’re putting a lot of trust in your users to stick to your processes without any real enforcement. With Excel your users will find a lot of freedom to customise and edit fields with no standardisation of your process, or data entry. Where perhaps a resource may be entered as “John Smith” one time, they may be “J.Smith” the next and “Smithy” the one after. This gives you a lot of complications for reporting and reviewing your data.

Who’s knows how your spreadsheet formulas work? – Excel is rife for human error and broken formulas, leaving it highly likely the data you are working with will be incorrect. Whilst your spreadsheet may work fantastic in the early stages, as your spreadsheet grows your formulas become more complicated and reliant upon certain cells not moving, being edited or even deletedby a colleague (accidentally or not!).

To the point above, whilst a spreadsheet can be locked for access, once someone has gained editing rights they have the freedom to alter data and formulas at the core of your planning function. Meaning you could be working with entirely incorrect costs, resource availability, start dates, end dates (etc…), or even *god forbid* a corrupted file that you can no longer use.

A proper planning solution

With the above being said, it’s clear to see the need for a “proper planning solution” to ensure you avoid the above problems and many other pitfalls. There are plenty of tools in the market, but for a Project Management tool there is a clear industry leader… Primavera.

Oracle’s Primavera suite offers up 2 solutions that will help to revolutionise your Project Management functionality. Giving you alignment to best practices, industry recognised planning file formats, workflows and processes configured to your business and project requirements, amongst many benefits. These 2 solutions are:

– Oracle Primavera P6 (EPPM & PPM)

– Oracle Primavera Cloud (OPC) Schedule

Whilst it can be a daunting task to jump from Excel to a planning tool, (or even to make the step straight away to a planning tool) it is not one your company will regret. Very rarely do you ever hear of an organisation moving to any other tool after picking up a Primavera solution, let alone returning to their Excel spreadsheets! – Besides, the power of a Primavera solution is hard to question when it can comfortably deal with up to 100,000 activities per project… many other solutions in the market struggle with as little as 2,000.

With P6, you are investing in the industry standard solution, with many sectors now insisting that you provide your project plans in XML or XER file formats. With OPC, your investment aligns with the lion share of Oracle’s investment in Project Management solutions. With OPC receiving enormous development funding to take inspiration and improve on the functionality found across the core Primavera suite but hosted into a single SaaS platform.

Selecting and implementing the RIGHT tool for you

Here’s where we can help. We’ve helped organisations at all stages of their planning journeys, from small single user implementations all the way up to integrated enterprise solutions for 1,000s or users. Through a collaborative discovery period, we can work with you to identify and then implement a tool that gives you what you need right now, as well as giving you scope to grow your use as your organisation matures.

The HPS team can support your organisation along your journey to ensure you are planning for now and the future. Helping you to understand the benefits and negatives associated with key questions like

– SaaS vs On Premises

– Shared DB vs Standalone

– Integration to other tool sets

– Point solutions vs Single vendor solutions

We can share stories and experiences of prior implementations, make recommendations on solution architecture and guide your organisation to a modern, efficient and productive toolset built to your requirements.

To find out more about our solution architecture processes, click here

Or contact us below to find out how we could help your company make the jump into “proper planning”:

Hyde Park Solutions Limited, 2 Octavia Buildings, Kilmacolm, Renfrewshire, PA13 4AE

info@hydeparksolutions.com

+44 203 174 0070

Hyde Park Solutions Limited, 40 Shuman Blvd, Suite 320, Naperville, IL, 60563, USA

info@hydeparksolutions.com

+1 630 556 1533

Hyde Park Solutions Pvt. Ltd. Unit No.304,18 High Street, Baner Pashan Link Road Baner Pune, 411045, India

info@hydeparksolutions.com

+91 888 498 8181

Hyde Park Solutions Pty Limited, Level 3, 655 Pacific Highway, St Leonards NSW 2065, Australia

info@hydeparksolutions.com

+61 2 8320 9230

HPS puts you in control

Hyde Park Solutions, Oracle Primavera partner, at the forefront of Portfolio & Project Management, having the largest number of certified professionals delivering solutions using P6, Unifier, Primavera Cloud, OPPM, Aconex, Primavera Analytics and Integration Cloud Service with global delivery teams.