This book will not make you an ordinary Excel expert. After all, you have a full time job and Excel is just a tool to help you do it better, right? However, research shows that some 90% of spreadsheets contain errors—often serious mistakes, which destroy the value of their models. This prevents you from getting the full benefit of the power of spreadsheets.
You will learn the Excel functions that are the most useful in the context of Structured Spreadsheet Modelling and Implementation. You will not learn arcane and esoteric functions that are the pride of some Excel gurus, but make their spreadsheets hard to understand for non-experts like the majority of us.
What this book is about is structure. Yes, STRUCTURE. Structured modelling and structured implementation. This is the key to developing spreadsheets that are easier to explain to colleagues, bosses and clients, that are easier to verify and, most importantly, that are easier to modify in the future.
It’s also about SIMPLICITY. The Golden Rule used throughout the book is to avoid mixing operators and functions in the same formula. That means that you should not have an addition and a multiplication in one formula. And, you can avoid doing nested IFs. The biggest advantage of simplicity is that formulas are easier to understand and explain to others. You won’t find yourself in the situation where you have problems understanding your own spreadsheets when you come back to them months later.
The methodology you’ll learn in this book—which can be applied to a wide variety of situations and needs—are based on proven principles from the fields of Information Systems, Computer Science, and Software Engineering. With its help, you can feel confident with your future spreadsheets.
This is not a book you can read leisurely. You need to allocate yourself uninterrupted periods ranging from 15 to 90 minutes to actively follow the steps illustrated in each chapter. Expect to spend 7 to 10 hours to go through the whole book.
This book will make you special Excel expert: the one who does the job right.
