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We’ve never met before. But I already know a lot about you. You probably work in technology, maybe in a Mobile Network RAN. You already use Microsoft Excel, and you’d like to get better at it. You are not a manager and don’t have a team of people to supervise or manage. Lastly, you want to get more out of your career.

How do I know all these things about you? I didn’t sleep at 221B Baker Street last night, but I do read and watch a lot of Sherlock Holmes stories. Seriously, I’ve shared this article to Telecoms and Excel groups, where Telecoms professionals and people trying to improve their Excel skills hang out. So you’re probably one of them.

And what about not being a Manager, was I right about that? That was easy, it’s a trick question: when was the last time you met any manager who thought there was anything they didn’t already know? Hah!

About getting more from your career, what else should I expect from someone scouring technology groups and blogs trying to learn new skills?

This article will cover one of Excel’s most useful and most difficult topics: Dynamic Named Ranges. I’ve talked about Named Ranges before, how they make your formulas easier to read and to update. Dynamic Named Ranges give you a way to automatically re-size ranges as your dataset changes. Two places where this is often done is with Charts and with Print Areas. In this article, I’ll show you have a Dynamic Named Range can automate the data displayed in your charts. The result is one less step whenever you update the Project Tracker. Continue reading “Excel BTS Project Tracker – Dynamic Named Ranges”

So far in this series I’ve written 4 articles building our Project Tracker.  I’ve set up the Updates table and created progressively more complex Pivot Tables by using Lookups, Synthetic Data and Bucketization.

But let me stop for just a moment to talk about where I’m going with this.  I’ve written before about Excel Dashboards.  In Stop Monthly Reporting Madness I described a 3-step process for Excel automation: Update, Refresh, Share. This 3-step process works for Trackers and Dashboards and just about any Excel Workbook for managing a fixed dataset that accepts changes over time.  Exactly how you realize this 3-step Mantra really depends on the nature of the underlying data and your own creativity.

Generally, when I create a new Excel project, my objective is to do as much of the work as possible up front, when I’m creating the workbook.  Once completed, the workbook shouldn’t need to be changed, only data added.  The workbook just reliably does what it was setup to do.  Day-in, day-out, as I use the workbook, it is as simple and as automated as possible.  That 3-step process is always my goal: Update, Refresh, Share. Continue reading “Excel BTS Project Tracker – New Date Format”

What kind of Engineer are you, how would you describe yourself?  Are you the kind who uses a straight edge when you write so the lines will be beautifully aligned, or do you scribble something barely legible to get done and to move on to the next thing?  Do you calculate cell boundaries using 8-digit precision, or do you close one eye and squint through the other to make your best guess based on the data and your experience?

I know that it takes all kinds to make the world.  There will always be a need for the beautifully aligned, 8-digit precision types.  For myself and the work I do, I always preferred the scribblers and the guessers.  I’ll take a Master of the Pareto Principle (https://goo.gl/P63YH5) over the i-dotters and t-crossers any day.

No slight intended to those people.  They do fine work, and there are times when that is essential.  Like rocket launches, aircraft manufacturing, pharmaceuticals.  But in my experience, Telecoms never respected that quality of work and the time required to do it.  Most of the time, whatever work we did today, ended up being redone, with a slightly different set of requirement, within a few months time.

The point I want to make is that there is a time and place for everything.  As Engineers and Technologists, we must maintain our situational awareness to know what kind of effort is required.  Know when the absolute best is required, and when going a little faster is more highly valued.  Put cavalierly, “Don’t make the Best the Enemy of Good Enough“.  There is a time and a place. Remember that. Continue reading “Excel BTS Project Tracker (Date Buckets)”

I’ve been writing about how to create a BTS Project Tracker using Excel.  Let me tell you a bit about why.  Frequently in my career, my teams have had checklists they needed to perform at every BTS or Site in the network.  These checklists were of a manageable size.  I couldn’t justify a dedicated Program Manager.  Nor could the cost of a full-blown project management software.  Besides, for smallish projects like these, use of project planning software like Microsoft Project would be overkill.  So I had to rely on my team to report and track their progress themselves.  All too often I found that few of them were skilled enough with Excel to do this well.

But these types of projects are very common.  I realized that I should be teaching my teams how to do these things for themselves.  Not only did this seem like my responsibility.  But training the team would also serve both our interests. They would acquire new skills for their careers, and I would get a more capable team, besides the better updates I would get on these projects.  It was a fabulous win-win opportunity.

None of these techniques is very challenging.  And all of them use basic Excel functionality that can be used every day in many other circumstances. Please join me as I work towards a complete project tracker with a comprehensive dashboard. Continue reading “Excel BTS Project Tracker (This Technique is Much More Useful)”

Have you ever tried to use Excel to track the progress of a project? How did you do it? Did it work out OK? Or was it a huge mess, one that barely succeeded in reporting the status of the project?

Often, before people start using Excel, they imagine a piece of paper that might represent what they want to accomplish. Then, they set about to create that piece of paper using Excel. But this approach takes no advantage of Excel’s power to automate, simplify, and beautify.  They end up with something too labor-intensive, error-prone and ineffective.

I’d like to show you why Excel is truly outstanding for tracking projects. It’s also completely fantastic at creating dashboards, doing analysis, and at communicating complex concepts to non-technical audiences. But you have to know how to use it properly. I know you can do this.  Follow along with me to learn what you need to know about Excel.

This is the second article in my “Excel BTS Project Tracker” series.  In this series, I’m creating a completely functional project tracker using Microsoft Excel.  With each new article in the series, I enhance the previous version of the Tracker and teach you a couple of new Excel techniques at the same time. Continue reading “Excel Project Tracker with Task Weighting”

One of the most common projects in Mobile Telecoms is to complete a checklist of tasks for each BTS in a group.  In this series of blog posts, I’ll show you how to create an effective Tracker for this type of project using Excel.  If you work with Excel, and especially if you are a Technical Manager, this series is written for you.

You’ll not only get a reusable project Tracker, but also some new Excel skills to save your time, reduce your workload, and maybe even get recognized for the quality of your work.  You’ll use these techniques again and again.

With this first post, I’ll create a complete project tracker.   I want to show you how easy it is to do using Excel.  This will be a fully functional project Tracker, which you can use immediately. Continue reading “Excel Project Tracker (with the Coolest Excel Function Ever!)”