Excel is a Plague

In the realm of IT, Microsoft Excel often feels like an insidious weed, spreading overnight to infect the meticulously nurtured landscapes of digital innovation. It's akin to a persistent and unrelenting plague that infiltrates even the most fortified IT gardens. No matter how much budget is allocated to expel this digital pest, users, with a touch of wizardry, manage to conjure up new Excel-based marvels, seamlessly integrating them into their core workflows.

For Corporate America Managers, the expectation is clear: deliver results with the tools at hand. As you coordinate, organize, and measure progress in your day-to-day activities, you may unknowingly become part of the problem. You harness Excel to perform tasks that it was never meant or designed to handle.

Human creativity knows no bounds. We often use the wrong tools to achieve the right results; it's like adapting an iron to toast your bread or turning a door into an impromptu desk. So, let me pose a question: have you recently created an Excel workbook that barely features any formulas? Whether it's tracking progress, managing deliverables, constructing a timeline, listing vendors, or enabling users to input comments on a topic, if your answer is affirmative, you're inadvertently entangled in the Excel web. One day, you'll inevitably find yourself relying on one of these Excel solutions as part of your regular workflow.

Now, if you're also part of the IT department and utilize Excel for these tasks, such as tracking deliverables, it's time to reconsider your allegiance. You've inadvertently joined forces with the enemy you were meant to combat. But don't get me wrong; I, too, am an Excel enthusiast and consider myself a black belt in "exellian" arts. I can make Excel sing La Traviata. However, there are far superior tools already at your disposal that can liberate you from Excel's gravitational pull and the temptation to resort to it.

In this blog, we will embark on a pragmatic journey to explore ways to finally break free from Excel's clutches, ushering in newfound efficiency and productivity.