Keywords: Excel, template, spreadsheet, business, project, planning, management, tasks, earned, value, analysis, gantt, scheduling, timing, resources, performance, deadline, participants

The Excel Project Planning and Management template is designed as a generic and affordable Excel based solution to plan and manage any project. The ability to build the project's budget as tasks are identified facilitates the processes of business case proposal, valuation analysis and securing required project funding. Project dynamics can be altered and performance monitored with best practice Earned Value Analysis throughout the complete project life cycle. The Project Planning and Management template provides the ability to define the project budget as tasks are defined. Project phases, task titles, holidays and other key project parameters can be predefined to accelerate work flow. Task dependencies and timing constraints are taken into account for the automatic calculation of task timing. A project Gantt schedule with daily, weekly or monthly intervals is created with embedded task information. The project status report details overall project progress based on Earned Value Analysis with trends displayed for cost and schedule performance indices. Individual workbooks with task lists for each project participant can be generated and subsequent batch import function used to automate the update of the project progress and status. The Project Planning and Management template is compatible with Excel 97-2013 for Windows and Excel 2011 or 2004 for Mac as a cross platform project management solution.