IMHO: Excel the Plague of the Information Age

But the developers of spreadsheet applications didn't stop there. Look at MS Excel today. I have not seen any business, any organization which does not - in some way or the other - use MS Excel. Even the Google community often has Excel in the backhand. It has spread all around the business world and almost everyone in his/her working live - as long as there is a computer close by - will use Excel sometime.

It looks benign. You even invite it in happily and nourish it. But it acts like a virus, infecting the organization, spreading slowly but steadily, slowing down some functions and crippling other ones. If you are lucky they are none vital ones.

Excel has become a common tool on every computer. Organisations nowadays tend not to think a lot about it anymore. You don't have to apply to have it installed on your machine. And as with Windows, Word, Powerpoint  you are expected just to know how to operate it. Basic training? What do you expect? Isn't it like bread-and-butter.

Here is the catch. It is so very powerful. You can do amazing things with it. Bar, Pie, Scatter and bubble charts; pivot tables, multidimensional data aggregation drawing data from one sheet to the other creating complex data mazes. You can write formulas stretching over 5-6 lines so you yourself have trouble to remember what it exactly does.

There is a simple model at the start but soon you incorporate more and more facets of the business process. It is becoming larger, more complex, more prune for faults and in the end one single small change will result in incomprehensible behaviour of the model. It is like writing software without a clear goal in mind and without even trying to utilise a proper development approach.

You say there are a lot of power users around. They can help you understand what is happening and why it is not working. And you are right.  Many colleagues will know what a VLOOKUP looks like. But can they explain why the fourth parameter is usually set to false?

So Excel not only became a tool you can use for many different things. It is also a tool which creates a lot of - nicely phrased - interaction at the workplace: "Why is this not working anymore?", "Can you just have a quick look on this formula?", "I tried for hours, I need your help!" So in the end not one, not two but groups of people are involved in straightening out faulty excel sheets, or should I better say overlooked business logic during the creation phase.

It spreads like a virus. Someone says "Oh my, why is it not working" and the colleague will bend over "let me have a look". Next it goes: "Oh, let's call Bill, I think he can help.". And Bill being very helpful but also clueless will ask his colleagues, will spend time in the web to figure out how to solve  the problem. Suddenly tons and tons of people are occupied solving a problem which you wouldn't have had if the task on hand would have been broken down in small understandable chunks in the first place. Not to mention a proper documentation.

But Excel allows you to do it complicated. It allows you to work in your own style. You can create interesting things and your imagination is the limit. There are no real rules, boundaries or restrictions. The very same requirement you can solve in lots and lots of different ways. But, how are you supposed to answer Compliance and Internal Controls, how are you supposed to be accountable for what you are or better your Excel sheet is doing?

It would be even ok if you would solve one-time problems, if you would only be tackling uncritical processes,  or do some minor reporting tasks. But it has become very common that critical business processes are based on routines inside MS Excel. Analytics, on which you base your daily business decisions on, derive from formulas which can be very easily tempered with, leaving  no trace and no audit trail whatsoever.

I hear your objection; but let me ask how many spreadsheets you are using are password protected? How many of those have the cells with the formulas extra protected? How many of them are following a role based authorization model? How many spreadsheets are on a file or cloud server which will track the individual versions of the file (and how many user are actually familiar with that functionality)?

In many, many organisations there is no accountability and no traceability on usage of office applications. No one can be held responsible. Potentially the poor employee who was commissioned to set up the excel sheet; only because he was the only one in the department ever recorded a macro. Can you today still rely on a knowledge monopoly? Excel models become over time more rigid - and with it the processes - because the procedures, formulas and the arithmetic are not documented and/or the responsible/knowledgeable staff is not available anymore.

Anyhow you already see product pricing, budget forecasting, investment decisions, HR, payroll processing, project plans and even small CRM systems partly or  completely utilizing Excel models. Excel has become common-place for data analysis. Drawing data from the ERP system and starting to build analytical models, graphic representation and reporting templates is standard in many departments. This fact alone should make the CEO's hair turn grey over night. Data is extracted, multiplied, no longer updated, individually evaluated and aggregated. Consequently in the next reporting season a fresh bunch of graduates are put in charge to repeat the process.

If this all should be true, how could such a company survive? I can only imagine that because everyone is doing it, it is levelling out the disadvantage in the competition.

MS Excel will not go away; neither shall it! It is a tool much to versatile not to use! Of course training would be helpful. But I fear that more Excel training will not lead to better usage of the tool. At least not to the effect that the risks can be mitigated through making everyone an expert.

To my opinion - and I love to discuss it with you - organisations need to implement structure. Employees need training in process modelling, translating business procedures into data models and abiding basic development structures. They should be able to see the value of an initial planning process against an unmanaged step-by-step approach which eventually leads into an incomprehensible state.

Knowing the fundamentals of software design - adapted to their work environment - will not only make them better in using Excel, it will also manifest a common way of working; of structuring a problem. So in the end the models created by one team can be understood by another team.

Lastly with this knowledge the limits of a Multi-Tool versus a specialized tool will become much clearer. The staff will see where the use of e.g. Excel is not valid anymore and a permanent solution is required. They even can actively support that development.

But you could also just uninstall Excel and go with paper and pen again. At least the archive process is defined.

Do you follow my reasoning? Do you have similar or different experience? Why don't you leave a comment below. I'm looking forward to the discussion.