A podcast by Hiran de Silva. Read by Paul.
Today’s blog is inspired by a post I saw on LinkedIn from Financial Modelling World Cup, FMWC, which presents a graphic hierarchy of Excel skills, as represented by features of Excel. It’s a neat little pyramid, visually suggesting that as you climb from beginner to advanced levels, you amass more Excel features, formulas, and know-how. But let’s take a moment to consider: Is mastering every feature really the same as mastering Excel itself? More importantly, is this how we should think about Excel, and Excel skills, in the context of real business challenges?
I’d argue this pyramid reflects just one narrow aspect of Excel–like knowing all the buttons, levers, and dials in your car. But just because you can name every feature in the vehicle doesn’t mean you’re a good driver. And certainly, it says nothing about whether you know the most efficient way to reach your destination. Even more nuanced is knowing where your journey should begin and end–an entirely different level of consideration that has little to do with whether you can use every feature of Excel.
Putting This to the Test: The Reg Call Handler Challenge.
To test this analogy, let’s use the *Reg Call Handler Challenge*. Reg is the Resident Excel Guru. A professional Excel expert. I won’t go into the technical details, you can see the challenge on this link, but it involves a spreadsheet that works well for a small-scale operation. The challenge is to scale it for a large team–20 times 50 people handling frequent interactions, leading to 300 or more spreadsheet movements in an hour. If you think that sounds like a recipe for chaos, you’re right.
That would be several thousand spreadsheet movements an hour!
Now, imagine handing this challenge to someone at the top of the FMWC Excel skills pyramid. Would they succeed? Likely not. As we saw when this test played out on LinkedIn, recognized Excel experts unanimously agreed: This is not a job for Excel as they understand it. Yet Reg–a character in our story who doesn’t even qualify for a spot on this pyramid–has solved it. Easily. How?
Why Reg’s Solution Works.
Let’s break it down. Reg, who doesn’t know many of the advanced features of Excel, solved the challenge by avoiding the common pitfalls the so-called “Excel experts” fall into. The key? He didn’t try to smash through the ceiling of the pyramid. He sidestepped it entirely, choosing a more strategic approach.
Here’s why Reg’s solution works: Instead of using Excel’s power features like Power Query, dynamic arrays, or X LOOKUP as standalone tools, he understood that these features were never designed for this kind of scale. These tools were created for single-user scenarios or isolated tasks, not for enterprise-level workflows with multiple users and thousands of transactions per hour that need to connect many people in the same process.
When confronted with the scaling problem in the Reg Call Handler Challenge, most experts find themselves in a swamp–a tangled mess of complex, unmanageable spreadsheets with too many moving parts. This is where the gap between Excel’s powerful features and its limitations becomes painfully clear. But Reg, knowing the limitations, didn’t even go there.
A New Pyramid: From Basic to Professional Excel.
Let’s propose a different pyramid, one that reflects what’s really going on in the world of Excel.
1. **At the bottom** are beginners, people who are learning Excel for the first time. Their goals are modest, and many of them will never need to move beyond this level.
2. **In the middle** are the people who aim higher. They’ve learned the power features–those skills that sit higher on the FMWC pyramid–and they are trying to solve more complex problems with them.
3. **At the top** of this new pyramid is a ceiling, a barrier where these power features hit their limits. This is where most users find themselves stuck, battling overly complicated spreadsheets that spiral into what I call “Excel Hell.”
Above that ceiling lies the swamp of scaling issues, data chaos, and overcomplication. Yet, somewhere beyond this swamp is a sweet spot, the summit where real solutions exist. This is where Reg operates, using a professional approach that recognizes the limitations of Excel’s power features and moves beyond them.
The Professional Excel Solution: Beyond Power Query.
So, what is Reg doing differently? He understands that to solve an enterprise problem, you need to think beyond the tools you have. While Power Query, dynamic arrays, and X LOOKUP are useful in certain isolated contexts, they are not designed for enterprise-level, multi-user scenarios.
In real-world business environments, the spreadsheets need to work with a central hub of data, not disconnected spreadsheets scattered around. The architecture of the solution needs to be different, and that’s why I often refer to this as going *beyond Power Query*. You need to use the principles of good data management but scale them up in ways that Excel’s already built-in features can easily handle; but not the built-in features engineered for the single-user context.
In Reg’s case, he wasn’t using every advanced feature of Excel. He wasn’t linking dozens of spreadsheets together or building a maze of formulas. Instead, he designed a simple, scalable system that minimized the chaos and allowed the process to run smoothly. It’s not flashy, and it doesn’t require memorizing every new Excel function, but it works. Spectacularly.
Conclusion: Competence is More Than Features.
The FMWC pyramid tells you about the features of Excel. It assumes that as you climb higher, you gain more experience. But what it doesn’t tell you is whether you’re gaining the right kind of experience–the kind that actually translates to success in the workplace. Of course, as a single-user on a stand alone task you’d be perfectly fine.
Knowing every button and dial in your car won’t make you a competent driver. It won’t help you navigate traffic or decide the best route. In Excel, it’s the same: mastering every formula or function doesn’t mean you can build effective, scalable solutions in a business setting.
When you move beyond Power Query and those other advanced features, you start to understand what’s truly necessary: simple, scalable systems that work for the enterprise. That’s where real Excel mastery lies–not in mastering the tool itself, but in understanding how to use it to achieve the right results.
So, next time you find yourself in the swamp of complex spreadsheets, remember that the real solution does, yes it does lie at the top of the pyramid. But it requires stepping outside it entirely in order to reach it. And, here’s the thing, this pyramid is a pyramid of deliverable results in the workplace, not that of the buttons and levers that are features of Excel.
Thank you for watching. Stay tuned for more thought leadership on Excel and beyond!
You’ve been watching a podcast by Hiran de Silva. Read by Paul.
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