How to Track Project Percent Complete in Excel

Measure project progress three ways: share of tasks done, effort-weighted percent complete, and hours of work remaining.

You will learn to

• Calculate the share of tasks marked Done
• Calculate percent complete weighted by effort
• Calculate the hours of work remaining

How it works

Counting finished tasks is the quickest progress measure, but it treats a 4-hour task the same as a 32-hour one. A better figure is effort-weighted percent complete: each task’s estimated hours × its % complete, added up and divided by total hours — =SUMPRODUCT(B2:B11,D2:D11)/SUM(B2:B11).

The same idea gives the work remaining: hours × (1 − % complete), summed. Reporting hours left alongside percent complete helps clients and managers see whether the finish date is realistic.

=SUMPRODUCT(B2:B11,D2:D11)/SUM(B2:B11)