When Excel Is Not Enough

"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are."

If you’ve ever joined a new venture you may find this quote (attributed to Theodore Roosevelt) really apt. Before the systems, policies, processes, etc. are in place you still have to find a way to make the work happen with only what you have to hand.

I faced this situation when I was at Global Crossing many years ago. I was managing a team designing international telecommunications circuits, but how were we to track the orders?

The obvious answer back then would have been Excel, (today it might be SharePoint), but Excel had many limitations – how would multiple people access a spreadsheet without locking each other out, how would we track progress and record the history for each order, how would we gather management information and how could we protect ourselves from mishaps that might cause data to be corrupted?

So I did what I could - I developed an application,

With what I had – Microsoft Access, a standard component of Office that everyone has, so there was no major expenditure,

Where I was - sitting amongst the team who would actually use it.

Taking this approach meant that I could tailor the application to the exact needs of the team. It made it easier for them to do their work and yet not get in their way. The layout on the screen matched their thought processes and logical flow.

It meant that, as their manager, I could track the work and report on it. I, then, had ready access to actionable information – I always knew where any orders were getting stuck and the cost to the business of those orders.

This was easier because the orders would already be loaded in to a database by the time the orders reached us so our application could simply download the details for us. We would see the orders appear in our order list and begin working on them almost right away.

The key to this was the ability to develop an application within the community who would use it. This enabled microscopic tweaks that fine-tuned the tool and enabled quicker turnaround for the orders with higher quality leading to happy customers. From the management’s viewpoint it was a fast-track to process improvement that provided actual business benefit including management reporting, but at low cost.

Does this approach to problem solving sound like something you might find useful in your field? Get in touch and let’s talk and see if I can help.

The photo is an early incarnation of the Global Crossing network operations centre being built at Centennium House, London.