Category Archives: Project Management Tools

How to Make a Lean A3 – Project on a Page

October 10, 2021Project Management ToolsA3, Lean, PDCA, project managementDavid McLachlan

How to Make a Lean A3 Project on a Page

A Lean A3 is a project summary on a page. It tells the story of your change, improvement or project from the time it is just an idea all the way through to delivery and implementing the change. It also shows the main people involved, the data and reasons for the improvement, and a high level schedule for making the improvement.

It follows the “Deming Cycle”, of Plan, Do, Check, and Act (or Adjust). Check out the video to create your own PDCA Lean A3 in PowerPoint below!

Step 1

First create the heading area, by Inserting a Square shape, and colouring it grey.

Place two tables over the heading area, both without a “header” and unchecking banded rows. Turn these into our people and schedule list.

Plan Do Check Act picture 1

Step Two

Create seven more squares underneath this as our plank PDCA template,which will include the seven problem solving steps of a Lean PDCA A3. These are:

Define the problem
Grasp the current situation
Plan
Do
Check
Act (or Adjust)
Lessons Learned

Step 3

Now we can fill in the Lean A3. For each step:

Gather data and the “Gap” between where you are and where you want to be
Use Value Stream Maps, process maps, Pareto charts, Fishbone diagrams to grasp the current situation and potential root causes
Create an action plan based on the root causes, assign actions to people and give due dates.
Show the schedules and actions in progress using a Gantt chart or Kanban board.
Check your measures – what were you aiming for, and what was achieved?
Update the Standard Operation Process (SOP) with the new process
Perform a project Post-mortem, Retrospective, and gather lessons from the project.

Lean A3 PDCA Complete Template

– David McLachlan

How to Make a Sprint Burndown Chart in Excel

September 26, 2021Project Management ToolsDavid McLachlan

How to Make a Sprint Burndown Chart in Excel

A burndown chart is a tool from Agile, where all the “Stories” or items of work to be completed in a given iteration (a two-week time frame), with their accumulated points (how small or large each story is) are shown on a chart as the points are completed, from their total at the beginning to zero at the end of the iteration.

This video and article shows how to make a sprint burndown chart in Excel. Enjoy!

Step 1

First add the general framing and colours to your sheet:

Sprint Burndown Chart in Excel 02

Step 2

Next, fill out the backlog IDs, feature or story names, dates, and points as necessary.

Sprint Burndown Chart in Excel 03

Step 3

Now we can add in the formulas for Remaining Effort, Ideal Trend, and Points Completed This Sprint:

Remaining Effort: First =SUM(D7:D18), then =D19-SUM(E7:E18)
Ideal Trend: =D20-($D$20/COUNT($E$5:$N$5))
Points Completed This Sprint: =SUMIF(E7:N11,”> 0″)

Sprint Burndown Chart in Excel 04

Step 4

Now we can create the burndown chart. Select Remaining Effort and Ideal Trend rows, go to Insert > Line chart.

Sprint Burndown Chart in Excel 05

And now you have a beautiful sprint burndown chart in Excel!

Sprint Burndown Chart in Excel 01

How to Make a Customer Journey Map in Excel

September 26, 2021Project Management ToolsDavid McLachlan

How to Make a Customer Journey Map in Excel

A Customer Journey Map is a brilliant way to discover pain points in your customer’s journey, as they buy your product or service.

It notes the different areas (such as customer service points, digital apps or web pages) that a customer will travel through, the different process steps in each area, then rates their experience at each point from 1 to 10. Each rating is given a nice “emoji” icon (Happy or Sad), and a few notes on what the customer said at that point.

With all this it gives you a complete customer picture. It also allows us to find areas to improve, what features to deliver next, or where to focus our project on.

Enjoy!

Step 1

First setup the general framing and colours on your sheet:

Customer Journey Map in Excel 02

Step 2

Then add in the areas and process steps for each area that a customer will go through:

Customer Journey Map in Excel 03

Step 3

Note the customer satisfaction from 1 to 10 at each point in the journey.

Create the emojis by going to Home > Insert > Shapes, and insert a curved line and a circle together, to make a face. Right click them and group them together.

Customer Journey Map in Excel 04

Step 4

Add in the customer comments so you can see exactly where to improve.

And now you have a beautiful Customer Journey Template made in Excel!

Customer Journey Map in Excel 01

How to Make a Product Comparison Template in Excel

September 26, 2021Project Management ToolsDavid McLachlan

How to Make a Product Comparison Template in Excel

Product or feature benchmarking is a key part of finding out where to go forward in your business. It is easy to do with the right product comparison template. You simply write the features that you are looking at, down one side. Then you note the different companies (or areas, or products) along the top, and note whether they have that feature where the two parts intersect.

Before you know it, you have a clear idea of the companies or products that have the features you want. Here’s how you create one!

Step 1

First setup the general framing and colours for your sheet:

Product Benchmarking Template 01

Step 2

Next, add in “Wingdings 2” font, “O” and “P” letters, which will make ticks and crosses.

You can use conditional formatting to colour the “O”s and “P”s like this:

Home > Conditional Formatting > Cell Value Equal to “P” and “O”, changing the font colour for each.

Product Benchmarking Template in Excel 02

Step 3

Next add the “Ranking System”, with the formula: =COUNTIF(C6:C37,”P”) at the top of each column.

You can add the right colours with Conditional Formatting:

Home > Conditional Formatting > Only Top or bottom Ranked Values (1)

Product Benchmarking Template in Excel 03

Now you have a beautiful Multi-Criteria Product Benchmarking template in Excel!

Product Benchmarking Template in Excel 04

How to Create a Schedule Network Diagram in Excel

December 10, 2020Project Management ToolsProject Management Tools, schedule network diagramDavid McLachlan

How to Create a Schedule Network Diagram in Excel

A Schedule Network Diagram is a key part in your project Schedule planning, especially when trying to figure out the critical path and the “float” or wiggle room in your project.

Below is a nice way to create a dynamic Schedule Network Diagram in Excel that updates when you update the numbers but is also able to be moved around your worksheet.

Step 1

Click in the top left corner of your sheet to select all cells. Then right click on the top row (for columns) and select column width. Set Column width to 3.

Right click on the left section and select “Row width”. Set that to 19. Now we have nice squares to work with.

Step 2

Use the border tool to create “Nine Square” boxes, then “Merge and center” the middle three boxes. That will be our description, while the others will be our early finish, duration, late finish, etc. Do this two across and as many as you like down (as many schedule boxes you will need).

Creating a schedule network diagram 1

Step 3

Next let’s freeze some cells, so we can always see our section with the boxes in it. Select column “I”, row “A”, and go to “View > Freeze Panes”. This will always show our activity boxes.

Creating a schedule network diagram 2

Step 4

Now we can select the first activity box. Select it and copy it (using Ctrl+C or right click > copy).

Next, Paste it into our worksheet area, but do it like this: Right click > “Other Paste Options” > Linked Picture.

Now, everything we change in our activity box will reflect on our worksheet schedule boxes. You can copy as many boxes as you like. If you double click on a picture box, it will take you to the activity box on the left to fill out. Very handy!

Creating a schedule network diagram 3