Moving off spreadsheets without losing what worked
Spreadsheets have real strengths: everyone knows how to use them and they adapt to anything. Leaving them does not mean throwing everything away, but keeping those strengths and adding what is missing.
Links propagate delays
Many teams still run their projects in a spreadsheet. That is not a flaw: spreadsheets are familiar, quick to change and need no training. They become a brake when the project grows.
What spreadsheets do well
- a readable task list, with an owner and dates;
- immediate adoption, for everyone;
- the freedom to add a column whenever you need one.
Where they reach their limits
A spreadsheet does not know that reassembly can only start after transport. If transport slips by three days, every row has to be shifted by hand, and one gets forgotten. Nor can it add up one person's workload across several projects, or keep track of the version from three weeks ago.
Keep the list, add the links
A good transition starts from the list that already exists: same tasks, same owners, same dates. Then you add what is missing, in this order:
- links between tasks, so that delays propagate on their own;
- estimates in hours, to reveal the workload;
- named versions of the plan, to compare against what was planned.
Do not change everything at once
A team that changes its tool, its method and its routines in the same month often ends up back in the spreadsheet. It is better to start with one project, with the people who do the work, and expand afterwards. Henry was designed for this move: a single chain, from schedule to portfolio, with no parallel file.