Essential Excel for Project Managers

What is the aim of this course?

Nowadays, project managers have plenty of apps, and software that support their work on a daily basis. Nevertheless, Excel still remains an important tool used to estimate the costs and benefits of the project. In some cases, Excel can be used to manage the project. In this course, I will teach how to use fast and efficiently Excel as a Project Manager.

In the course you will learn the following things:

1. Essential Excel functions that will be useful during your work as a Project Manager
2. How to conduct cost-benefit analysis using Excel
3. How to select projects using Excel
4. How to create and use rankings in Excel
5. How to create Gantt Charts, dashboards, and project cards in Excel.
6. How to summarize progress in Excel

This course is based on my 15 years of experience as a consultant in top consulting firms and as a Board Member responsible for strategy, performance improvement, and turn-arounds in the biggest firms from Retail, FMCG, SMG, B2B, and services sectors that I worked for. I have carried out or supervised over 90 different performance improvement projects in different industries that generated in total 2 billion of additional EBITDA. On the basis of what you will find in this course, I have trained in person over 100 consultants, business analysts, and managers who now are Partners in PE and VC funds, Investment Directors and Business Analysts in PE and VC, Operational Directors, COO, CRO, CEO, Directors in Consulting Companies, Board Members, etc. On top of that my courses on Udemy were already taken by more than 132 000 students including people working in EY, Walmart, Booz Allen Hamilton, Adidas, Naspers, Alvarez & Marsal, PwC, Dell, Walgreens, Orange, and many others.

I teach through case studies, so you will have a lot of lectures showing examples of analyses, and tools that we use. To every lecture, you will find attached (in additional resources) the Excels as well as additional presentations, and materials shown in the lectures so as a part of this course you will also get a library of ready-made analyses that can, with certain modifications, be applied by you or your team in your work.

Why have I decided to create this course?

Project Managers will have to use Excel in a different way than Analysts. Moreover, in some cases, you cannot use more advanced tools for project management as your team is obsessed with Excel. Project Sponsor will also ask you to create dashboards, Gantt charts, and a summary of the results of projects. Therefore, I have decided to make this course that will help students work fast and efficiently in Excel before and during projects. The course will give you the knowledge and insight into real-life case studies that will make your life easier. Thanks to this course, you will know what and how to prepare and manage efficiently any projects with the help of Excel.

To sum it up, I believe that if you want to become a world-class Project Manager, you have to have a pretty decent understanding of Excel. That is why, I highly recommend this course to Project Managers, especially those who have to report to the Steering Committee the results of many projects. The course will help you become an Excel on the level of McKinsey, BCG, Bain, and other top consulting firms.

In what way will you benefit from this course?

The course is a practical, step-by-step guide loaded with tones of analyses, tricks, and hints that will significantly improve the speed with which you understand, and analyze the businesses. There is little theory – mainly examples, a lot of tips from my own experience as well as other notable examples worth mentioning. Our intention is that thanks to the course you will learn:

1. Essential Excel functions that will be useful during your work as a Project Manager
2. How to conduct cost-benefit analysis using Excel
3. How to select projects using Excel
4. How to create and use rankings in Excel
5. How to create Gantt Charts, dashboards, and project cards in Excel.
6. How to summarize progress in Excel

You can also ask me any question either through the discussion field or by messaging me directly.

How the course is organized?

The course is divided currently into the following sections:

• Introduction. We begin with a little introduction to the course as well as some general info on how the course is organized
• How to merge data from different sources. In this section, we will see how we can use essential functions to merge data from different sources. You will need them not only to analyze data but also to summarize results and create reports for the Steering Committee
• To-do lists in Excel. In the next section, I will discuss how you can create an easy-to-navigate to-do list in Excel. I will show you some hacks, that will turn the to-do list into an effective tool for efficient project management.
• Cost-Benefit Analyses in Excel. As a Project Manager, you will quite often have to see whether the project makes sense or not. That’s why I will explain to you how to create a cost-benefit analysis. We will look at useful frameworks and we will apply them to case studies.
• How to create a Project Charter using Excel. In this brief section, I will show you how to create a project charter, and project card in Excel.
• How to use the IF function and what you can do instead? IF function is not always the best choice. That’s why in this section I will show you what other, more flexible functions you can use instead.
• Gantt Charts in Excel. In this brief section, I will show you how to create a Gantt chart in Excel.
• How to create a dashboard in Excel. In this brief section, I will show you how to create a dashboard in Excel.
• Rankings. In some cases, you may also need to present different options to solve specific problems. Your Supervisor will expect you to somehow rank those options. That’s why in this section, I will show you how to create rankings in Excel.
• Project selection in Excel. In the last section, we will see how you can select which projects should be started. We will look at strategic, portfolio, and bottleneck approaches.

You will be able also to download many additional resources

1. Useful frameworks and techniques

2. Analyses showed in the course

3. Additional resources

4. Links to additional presentations, articles, and movies

5. Links to books worth reading

At the end of my course, students will be able to…

• How to prepare a cost-benefit analysis
• How to create a dynamic dashboard in Excel
• How to create a Gantt chart in Excel
• Create a ranking of different options
• Select projects using Excel
• Use Pivot Tables and Excel Tables

Who should take this course? Who should not?

• Project Managers
• Managers
• Startup Founders.