Every once in a while I’m reminded why Excel is such a good tool for managers.
I started my career with a toolbox full of programming techniques, a notebook full of perl scripts and python recipes.
But I quickly learned that programs have to be maintained and operated and most managers aren’t programmers and don’t want to manage programs.
Instead, they want something they can understand, use, modify and explain.
And Excel still fits that role as a simple, unpretentious workhorse tool that can do everything from data management to sophisticated modelling.
If you know how to get the most out of it – but most of us are never taught how to use Excel effectively.
One of the best books on the subject, if you’re interested, is – Management Science, the art of modelling with spreadsheets – by Powell and Baker.
I particularly like their use of influence diagrams to build simple but powerful scenario models.
Before you opt for a cloud SaaS product it’s worth asking whether you really need that and if you could instead just use Excel to get 80-90% of the way there.
Handcrafted insight 