No, spreadsheets are not the best tool for portfolio management

Many large projects are characterized by the fact that there is not one overview, but several different.

Firstly, the are the individual overviews that each project manager gets when he or she looks at his or her spreadsheets. But the truth is that if you do not have a single overview of all the projects, then no one really knows how far the individual project is or how it goes with staying within budget.

Outside taxpayers often look with great surprise at public projects when they repeatedly exceed budgets and deadlines. But if you yourself are involved in portfolio management of large projects, it does not require much to imagine how those kinds of overruns occur and why the management first discover it (too) late in the process

The hand at heart, if you, as a portfolio manager, are asked to provide a precise picture of the project’s status, how long does it take before you have access to all relevant data and before all data is consolidated? And are your figures adjusted by price index, and have any changes in exchange rates been taken into account?

Of course, how long it takes to obtain data depends on the nature and size of the project portfolio. But experience shows that often it takes so long to update the project’s total that when the actual figures are finally ready to be presented, they are no longer current.

Popularly said, the core of the problem is spreadsheets. So, not the worksheets in themselves, because they are a great tool for many things. But rather the phenomenon that each project manager keeps track of his part of the project with his own personal spreadsheet. In addition, the project managers often sit geographically dispersed and otherwise use different reporting principles. All together elements that make it very time-consuming to collect data and difficult to ensure high data quality.

CAPTYST PPM is a digital tool for financial and contract management, which is created on the basis of concrete experiences with extensive public construction projects. CAPTYST PPM focuses on solving the fundamental challenge in portfolio management: The lack of overview.

CAPTYST PPM is a user-friendly and intuitive cloud-based tool that draws on one central database. This means that no time is needed to consolidate spreadsheets and other documents. And most importantly, all data is updated continuously so that the project management has a full overview of all the project’s key figures in real time and with full data history at all times. This enables management to intervene early in projects as soon as changes occur.

In cooperation with our customers, we continuously update CAPTYST PPM, and we are happy to enter into dialogue with new customers about their specific needs.

CAPTYST PPM gives a full overview of all the project documents related to:

Budgeting / Accounting / Budget Changes / Contract Management / Auditing