Unless you have enough time and skills to do everything yourself, you’ll likely be managing other team members—either from your firm or from your client’s business—during a project. While there are plenty of tools you can use to keep track of everyone’s tasks and responsibilities, we’ve found one that we think is easy to use and understand.

IT consultant Mike Sisco, a TechRepublic contributor and former CIO, sent us a copy of an Excel spreadsheet that he uses on all his projects. Download it here, and you can place it on your network so that everyone involved in the project can comment and log their completed tasks, or you can send out copies to each team member.

(You can see a sample of a working spreadsheet on Sisco’s MDE Enterprises Web site.)

How it works
Here are some instructions for using the spreadsheet template. These are also included at the end of the spreadsheet itself:

  1. Fill in the Project name.
  2. Fill in the Project Manager name and contact information (e-mail, phone number, etc.).
  3. Fill in the month at the top of the columns (Jan., Feb., Aug., etc.).
  4. Fill in the week ending dates for each weekly column. There are five columns for each month to provide for five-week months.
  5. List the tasks and the person responsible for each task.
  6. Place a slash mark (/) in the cell of the week in which the task should be completed.
  7. List the resource participants and their initials at the bottom of the first page for reference.

Figure A shows how a typical project might look using this spreadsheet.

Figure A
Sample project spreadsheet

What application(s) do you use to manage your projects?

Do you use Excel, Microsoft Project, or some other project-related application to keep track of tasks? Tell us about them in the discussion below or in an e-mail.