How do I stop using spreadsheets to manage projects?

If you are managing your projects or processes in a spreadsheet, DO NOT SKIP this episode!

Spreadsheets might seem like a great option for managing your operations, but trust us, you're taking a huge hit in your ability to delegate, create accountability, track progress, and so much more.

In this episode of Automate Your Agency, Alane and Micah discuss the pitfalls of spreadsheet-based operations and how switching to a project management system can build stronger, more productive teams. Listen in as they share their first-hand experiences and guide you through the steps you can take to accurately transfer to the best system for your business!

Tune-in to Learn: 

• The Limitations of Spreadsheet-based Operations
• The Benefits of Switching to a Project Management System
• The Connection Between Accountability and Culture
• The Consequences of Sticking to Spreadsheets

If you're ready to make the switch from spreadsheet to project management tool, but are not sure which system to choose, check out our free Project Management System Selector Tool .

When you're ready to get your team up to speed quickly, don't forget to check out our team training courses for Monday.com, ClickUp, and Asana! A $79/user value is free to you with coupon code: AYAFREE

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Transcript

0:00:00 - (Alane): Welcome to automate your agency. Every week we bring you expert insights, practical tips, and success stories that will help you streamline your business operations and boost your growth. Let's get started on your journey to more efficient and scalable operations. If you are a business owner and you have your process that you are using in a spreadsheet, and you are wondering why your team is not following the process, you definitely need to be listening to this episode, for this episode.

0:00:33 - (Micah): Trying to manage projects in a spreadsheet.

0:00:35 - (Alane): Oh, my gosh, the number of spreadsheets I have seen, and it's amazing that spreadsheets have been evolved to use that way.

0:00:45 - (Micah): Yeah, I mean, they definitely could be used that way. You get enough tabs in there, you get enough dropdowns and color coding. But just like us in the very, very early days, and even my, my very first business, I manage stuff in spreadsheets. It's kind of a natural inclination to look at the tools that you already have and go, I think I could do this in a spreadsheet.

0:01:08 - (Alane): Yeah, it is actually a great way to start documenting what your process is, but it shouldn't be how you manage your process.

0:01:16 - (Micah): So a couple of things that we ran into a big one is accountability. It's super hard to understand what was going on in a project outside of maybe the project status, but who is doing what? When is it going to get done? How is it going to get done?

0:01:34 - (Alane): It's almost impossible to legitimately delegate and assign responsibilities out from a spreadsheet.

0:01:42 - (Micah): Yeah, it's kind of like wishful thinking. Like, I hope. Yeah, I hope my team does it. Their name is in this cell in a spreadsheet.

0:01:51 - (Alane): So, because that is one of the other things like that, I get on a call with a potential client and they're like, well, we've got this spreadsheet, but nobody follows it. I'm like, nobody? Yes. Nobody is following it. That means that the process is not working.

0:02:06 - (Micah): I wanna point out something, too. There's different types of people. There are list people, there's calendar people. They like looking at things on a calendar. There's board people. They like looking at on a board, and there's spreadsheet people. And those people are generally called accountants.

0:02:27 - (Alane): Well, but that's a great segue into why use a project management system instead? Because you can have multiple views for the same data.

0:02:38 - (Micah): That's right. One of the things that we missed out on in spreadsheets when we were using spreadsheets was the history of things we could put a status of where the project is at. But we couldn't easily see what led up to that. We couldn't collaborate and have a threaded conversation around, well, what is happening with this project? Or what are these tasks? Or when did things get done or create dependencies?

0:03:05 - (Micah): We need task a done before task b, or project a before project b. We couldn't do any of that easily in a spreadsheet.

0:03:13 - (Alane): And you know what normally happens if you're using a spreadsheet, the person has to ask these questions. So instead of keeping it with the task, they go to slack or whatever chat to ask these questions. Or can we get on a zoom.

0:03:27 - (Micah): Or a quick call or internal email threads?

0:03:31 - (Alane): Oh, times 1000, yeah. And so everything is now in different places and you don't have that history and you don't realize how much you need that history until you have it. And you have it right there and you can get your answer instantly by using the search bar. So if you have all this information in a spreadsheet, which a lot of our clients, that's where they're coming from, is they've got it all in a spreadsheet, how do you go from it being in a spreadsheet to it being in a project management system?

0:04:03 - (Micah): Yeah, I think that's a great question. I think if you already have it in a spreadsheet, you're already easily 50% of the way there. You're a lot farther than you might think you would be. The spreadsheet gives you the structure. You're looking at a workflow in a spreadsheet. Most likely you already have statuses. A lot of those are one to one translation into a project management tool. So I wouldn't be over, don't, if you're listening to this and going, oh my goodness, how do I get it from a spreadsheet into a project management tool?

0:04:34 - (Micah): Step one is figure out what the right project management tool is. We've got tools, we've got sessions that you can book with us to help pick the right project management tool. That's the easy part. Once you pick the right project management tool, then you look at your spreadsheet and we help clients with this all day long. Well, what are the statuses? What are the project types? What are the templates? You already have a template, it's your spreadsheet.

0:04:59 - (Micah): So you need to just be able to take that spreadsheet and then say, all right, what are the steps? Cool. That's going to be the phases of my project. What are the tasks? All right, those are going to be the tasks in the project management tool. Those two things alone, save it as a template.

0:05:14 - (Alane): Yeah. I mean, honestly, we're thrilled when we start working with a client that has a spreadsheet because they have a documented process, 100%, 100%.

0:05:23 - (Micah): Any of the dropdowns that you have, those could become task statuses. Those could become drop downs and custom fields. It's almost a one to one.

0:05:33 - (Alane): And one of the things that you're missing on a spreadsheet, well, there's a lot of things, but things don't need to be linear. When you're in a spreadsheet managing something, then it has to be linear because you're only working with rows and columns. But things could be happening simultaneously. And that you don't get to see that happening. But when you put it into a project management, well, task a and task b and c could all be done at the same time, and they're done by three different people.

0:06:03 - (Micah): Yes, that's an excellent point. You can create dependencies. You can build dashboards on top of your projects, see things from a higher level, get status updates and a history of status updates.

0:06:15 - (Alane): Yes. The data that you can then bubble up for running your company from a dashboard once it's in there is so freeing compared to what you were doing when you were in a spreadsheet.

0:06:29 - (Micah): Yeah, even I'm gonna say it sounds simple because it isn't a project management tool. Asana has this, ClickUp has this. But you can define goals and then you can attach those goals to the projects. And those projects have tasks. And as those tasks are completed, the project gets completed, those goal percentages automatically calculate. It's amazing. It's so simple when you think about it, but it's so hard to do outside of these tools.

0:06:57 - (Micah): So just like you wouldn't want to run your sales organization in a spreadsheet for a pipeline, for all the reasons of reporting and visualization and accountability and all that same thing with your projects. Once you sell something, don't run it in a spreadsheet, run it in a project management tool. Get the dashboards, get the accountability, get the history, get the tracking, get the integrations.

0:07:21 - (Micah): Oh, gosh, we didn't even touch on this yet.

0:07:24 - (Alane): Yeah. Before we go down that, though, I wanna touch on what we mean by accountability.

0:07:29 - (Micah): Good, good. Yeah.

0:07:31 - (Alane): Because that is when you actually see who is doing work, if they're getting it done on time, and who is dropping the ball.

0:07:42 - (Micah): This is a really interesting topic to me, Alane, because I think we've hinted at this in different episodes but we did this. We've gone through this with our previous business. When we merged with one of our competitors, we, you and I, had a very accountable culture. Everybody was accountable. We had our project management tools in place. We had our dashboards in place. We had our systems. We had our knowledge bases. We had everything in place.

0:08:11 - (Micah): And people couldn't hide behind poor systems. We merged with a competitor, and they didn't have all that in place yet.

0:08:20 - (Alane): Right.

0:08:21 - (Micah): When you start to put that in place, there's this natural inclination of the team to some of the team members, maybe get a little nervous because they've been hiding behind systems that weren't dialed in yet, and their accountability, or lack of accountability, couldn't be seen. Exactly. And so that's something that we faced in the past, and it's something to be aware of when you put systems in place.

0:08:51 - (Micah): But when you create accountability, it actually creates a better company culture. It's not micro management. You're not going in and trying to get every little second that's being used. But it's creating a culture where, Alane, if you're assigned something, I can count on you doing it. If I'm assigned something, you can count on me doing it. That's called trust. And that creates a great, great company culture.

0:09:15 - (Alane): Absolutely. I mean, when we started doing that and the trust that our team members had for each other was phenomenal. The distrust that they had for the people that weren't doing it. And those were the people that, you know, you know, early on. Okay, is it a process failure? Is it a training failure? Is it just a personality failure? And they don't want to work at work. Okay, well, then you can get rid of them. You have information, and the team does not want to work with them.

0:09:44 - (Micah): No.

0:09:44 - (Alane): That brings the whole company culture down when you have this thriving, hey, we're going to get to work, and we're going to get things done. And like you said, it is not about micromanaging, because they have their tests. They know what needs to get done. You don't need to meddle in that. It's so freeing for everybody. Cause it's not. Hey, did you do this? Did you do this? Hey, where are we at on this? Did you do this?

0:10:04 - (Alane): No. You've got the data right there.

0:10:06 - (Micah): I find this conversation interesting because we started with why spreadsheets can cause problems. And we were thinking early in this conversation, I think it was more like tactical. Like, what are the elements? And now we've already got to this huge culture aspect, like, as a business owner. I wanna be able to show up and have my team trust me and you and each other. I want a great company culture. I want it to work smoothly.

0:10:41 - (Micah): And it's so funny that we started with, like, don't use spreadsheets, because, you know, strategically and tactically, there's a whole bunch of, like, features you're missing out on. But where we ended up was don't use spreadsheets because you could actually be creating a poor company culture because of the lack of accountability, because the inability to easily follow, because the, you know, the history that doesn't exist in the spreadsheets.

0:11:09 - (Alane): And you know what? The other side of this is that if you and I have two people so vividly in my mind right now, where I did a pre call with them and they pull up a spreadsheet, and when you don't have the accountability on your team, it falls on you as the business owner. And those business owners that I did this call with, they are burnt out because they're the ones doing the chasing.

0:11:34 - (Micah): Yes. And what are they going to chase? Their tail. That's how I felt when we were in this position. I felt like I was just going around in a circle because I didn't have any data to say who actually did or didn't do stuff. It becomes a he said, she said. But once you get the system in place and a project management tool, then it's like, oh, Alane didn't get this done. Why not? Was it process? Was it training? Did she just not do it? Or Micah didn't get this done, or team member a, B and C are not getting their jobs done and now.

0:12:07 - (Alane): I don't have to do their jobs.

0:12:09 - (Micah): Yes. So I think if, if you've, you know, listen to this whole episode and you are using spreadsheets just to kind of recap a couple things. One, you're doing fantastic. The fact that you have a spreadsheet is already a huge plus. So lean into that. But I think if you're struggling with that spreadsheet and feeling like it's not, like it's missing pieces or it's cumbersome, or your team isn't doing the workflow that you want them or the process that you want them to do, then take that as your foundation and start looking at how do I use the right tool to get this done?

0:12:51 - (Micah): And if it's projects in a spreadsheet, clients and spreadsheets, tasks and spreadsheets, any type of, like, workflow, a sequence of things that need to get done. Asana, ClickUp or Monday, look at them as an option.

0:13:05 - (Alane): It's life changing.

0:13:06 - (Micah): Absolutely life changing. It's game changing as a leader. It's going to improve your company culture. It's going to create accountability. You've got history, you've got dashboards you can do. You have dependencies. You have integrations that you could do with your CRM with other platforms. It's going to create a whole new aspect of your business. And when we talk about efficiency and we have a different episode where we talk about buying software and the cost of software can sometimes be scary.

0:13:36 - (Micah): This is one of those cases where if you were to go from a spreadsheet that you already have in your Google or Microsoft suite, and you buy ClickUp or you subscribe to ClickUp, you're going to get an immediate ROI when it's built correctly from your spreadsheet. You're going to get efficiency, you're going to get accountability, you're going to get improved culture. That alone is going to be happier clients, happier customers, far less time wasted, far less time going back and forth and confusion and just so much more.

0:14:10 - (Alane): Enjoyment, happiness, less burnout. And if you're not sure which project management system is a good fit for your company, we have a free tool. It's our project management selector tool picker, and we're going to link to it in the show notes. And we also have free training for our listeners. So if it says Monday or sauna or ClickUp is right for you, we have a free basic training that's available in our community and we'll link to that.

0:14:39 - (Micah): Absolutely. All right. So reach out to us if you do have questions in this. This is something that's near and dear to both of our hearts. Spreadsheets are a great start. If you're struggling, reach out to us. Thanks for listening.

0:14:52 - (Alane): See you later. Thanks for listening to this episode of Automate your agency. We hope you're inspired to take your business to the next level. We have free content and tools for automating your business at our website, workdayninja.com.

0:15:05 - (Micah): And join us next week as we dive into more ways to automate and scale your business.

0:15:09 - (Alane): Bye for now.