Building a Community to Make Excel Mistakes Less Common

“The question is ‘how do I keep my volunteers on track?’ because they're hugely motivated.” - David Lyford-Smith

If you spend a lot of time working with spreadsheets, you know they have a special power to rule the world. You can do almost anything with them from creating a shopping list to financial planning and analysis. Spreadsheets' powers lie in the fact they are accessible to people who aren’t programmers and coders. But if even just one cell is wrong, it can wreak terrible havoc.

David Lyford-Smith works for the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. In the 1990s, ICAEW started a tech faculty to serve as internal experts researching matters of technology and automation affecting accountants. In 2013, it was apparent that the excel content was the most popular, and a collective of “excel warriors” was spun up into its own community. 

David raised his hand to help steer the direction of the work and joined several thousands of chartered accountants and others seeking to mitigate spreadsheet risk in workplaces around the world. They’ve created accessible materials like twenty principles for good spreadsheet practice as a guide for those who use spreadsheets daily and for those without special spreadsheet skills.

We talked with David about the power of spreadsheets and the way in which he is channeling the enthusiasm of excel warriors to help each other and to help the public mitigate spreadsheet risk.

Highlights, inspiration, & key learnings:

• The spreadsheet ecosystem. The power of spreadsheets and use cases.
• Documentation. What matters most in creating spreadsheets in teams.
• Channeling enthusiasm. Giving volunteers direction.
• Defining “who.” Serving communities needs and creating resources in the public interest.
• Origin story. How a group of excel warriors emerged at ICAEW.
• Content creation. Building with volunteer members and online creators.

👋🏻Say hi to David and learn more about Excel Community

✨Say hi to Mia, “Get Together” correspondent.

📄See the full transcript 

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