By Hiran de Silva
Another day, another post on LinkedIn telling us that Power Query is the answer to everything, and that everyone should learn it.
I’ve written a lot about this before, but it bears repeating: all of the so-called modern Excel features—Power Query, Dynamic Arrays, XLOOKUP, LAMBDA, Excel Tables—have been designed to serve a single type of environment: one user, one spreadsheet, one machine, working on one isolated task.
They are wonderful for the Excel equivalent of hobbyist tinkering. Ad hoc work. Standalone scenarios. Responsibility begins and ends with the user.
But here’s the problem: the moment we move from that private, isolated world into the real-world, end-to-end enterprise process, the rules change. Responsibility is no longer just yours—it belongs to the wider organisation. Higher levels of management, compliance, governance, operational standards. And that’s exactly the world in which Excel actually lives inside business.
Let me illustrate with a sketch I’ve used before—the difference between painting inside a tiny box with exquisite detail versus painting the entire wall with a spray gun. Modern Excel has mastered the box. Enterprise Excel needs to paint the wall.
And now, here’s a new analogy.
Private Land vs Public Highway
Imagine you’re on private land—a vast car park. Here, anyone can drive. No licence required. No road rules. No public responsibility. It’s a place for motoring enthusiasts to indulge in the thrill of driving purely for enjoyment. You can make up your own rules. You decide what’s correct or not.
It’s fun. It’s highly promoted. And it’s big business.
Now contrast that with the public highway.
Here, you must be tested. You must show you can be a safe driver. Responsibility extends beyond your own enjoyment—you are accountable to every other road user. You must follow conventions, rules of the road, and show basic courtesy towards the public environment. The consequences for ignoring those responsibilities are serious.
Given the choice, it’s not surprising that many prefer the private car park. It’s easier. It’s friendlier. And it’s a lot more forgiving. In fact, the private car park has become so popular and so profitable that many drivers aren’t even aware the public highway exists—let alone that it’s the real world of motoring.
The Excel Parallel
This is exactly what’s happened to Excel over the past decade.
Modern Excel—the Power Queries, Dynamic Arrays, XLOOKUPs—caters perfectly to the private car park environment.
Isolated spreadsheets. Personal projects. No consequences beyond your own desktop.
But business is the public highway. Enterprise Excel needs architecture, responsibility, and scalability. It needs to interact with other “road users”—other systems, other people, other processes—safely and predictably.
And here’s the problem: people who are trained only in the private car park are now trying to “drive” on the public highway in exactly the same way. The result? Today’s incarnation of Excel Hell.
The Crash Test
In my demonstrations, I often take a challenge that works beautifully in the private car park scenario. The LinkedIn comments cheer. The influencer posts go viral. But then I reframe it for the public highway: a true enterprise-scale requirement.
Every time—without exception—it crashes spectacularly.
Not because Excel can’t scale. But because the technique that works in the car park is wholly unsuited to the highway.
And then, using the right approach—enterprise architecture, clear responsibility, proper integration with the wider process—the same challenge sails through without a dent.
That’s the point.
Modern Excel is not bad—it’s just been sold as a universal solution when it was never designed for the public highway.
The takeaway?
If you want to drive in the real world of business, you need more than a shiny new car and a private track. You need to know the rules of the road. And in Excel terms, that means thinking beyond features designed for single users—and learning the architecture that makes Excel work as part of an enterprise-scale process.
Otherwise, you’re not driving—you’re just doing laps in the car park, wondering why the motorway keeps causing pile-ups.
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