The Spreadsheet That Ate Saturday

In almost every small organisation there is a spreadsheet of legendary status. It began modestly — a list of volunteers, perhaps, or of donations received — and over the years it grew columns, colours, hidden tabs and formulae that only one person fully understands. It is consulted constantly, trusted completely and feared a little.

On Saturdays, someone sits with it for hours, copying, checking and reconciling. The work is diligent and necessary. It is also, almost always, work that a modest change of tools could eliminate.

The symptoms

You may recognise the spreadsheet by its characteristics:

• It exists in several versions, each titled some variation of final.
• Only one person can safely edit it.
• Information is typed into it from emails, forms and paper, often more than once.
• When its keeper is away, certain decisions simply wait.

Retiring it gracefully

The temptation is to replace the spreadsheet with an ambitious new system. That is seldom wise. A better approach proceeds in careful steps:

1. 1Ask what questions it answers. Who is scheduled this week? Who has given this year? The questions define the need.
2. 2Capture information once, at the source. A simple online form that feeds a shared list eliminates retyping entirely.
3. 3Choose the simplest tool that answers the questions. Often it is a feature of software the organisation already licenses.
4. 4Move the knowledge, not just the data. Document how the new process works so that it belongs to the organisation, not to one person.

The real prize

The purpose of all this is not technical elegance. It is time returned to people: to the coordinator who can now spend Saturday with volunteers rather than cells, and to the families who benefit from her attention. Technology at its best is not impressive. It is invisible, and it gives people back their weekends.