Table of Contents
Praise for Hate Excel?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . x
Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xii
Structure of the book. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiv
1 - Shame, the big driver 1
Are you one of the Excel haters?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Starting the case. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Something to Do/Try/Consider. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2 - Visiting the crime scene 15
Going down the dead ends - some things
don't work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Something to Do/Try/Consider. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
3 - It's a puzzle, not a punishment 29
Get evidence to Forensics. Do some
experiments. Run some tests. . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
What are the patterns? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Curate your curiosity. Start thinking
about the case. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Round up the usual suspects. Identify
the most used topics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Revisit the scene. Begin again. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
viii Hate Excel?
Have a big board so you can step back and
see what you know already . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
You need a database - unless you can
remember everything. In which case,
why are you reading this book? . . . . . . . . . . 38
Stay calm and focussed. Self-soothe
as required . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
This is the way for everything . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Something to Do/Try/Consider. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
4 - Revisit the scene 41
Can I get me a reframe?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Some ways to reframe your challenge. . . . . . . . . 52
Something to Do/Try/Consider. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
5 - Closing in on the suspects 56
What? What I need to learn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Why? Why do I REALLY want to learn this? . . . . 59
When? When will I actually do the learning?. . . . 61
How? How am I going to learn?. . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Where? Where am I going to learn?. . . . . . . . . . 64
Who? Who can help me? I need an E-Team. . . . . 64
What are your Training Temptations?. . . . . . . . . 64
Rewarding your successes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Capturing the learnings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Something to Do/Try/Consider. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
6 - Working through the plan 68
Starting the plan - Week 1 - Monday. . . . . . . . . . 69
The plan - Week 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
What actually happens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Review of the week. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
The plan - Week 2. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
The plan - Week 3. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
The plan - Week 4. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Something to Do/Try/Consider. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
7 - All is well that ends well and on to
the next case 90
Some other Excel stories. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
About Anne Walsh. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Acknowledgements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
