Management Rules: 50 New Rules for Managers

CHAPTER 38

PREPARING SPREADSHEETS

There are three rules for spreadsheets:

• Keep it simple
• The spreadsheet is only as good as the person behind it
• It’s not the numbers that count: it’s the assumptions

Follow these three assumptions, and you have a chance of producing a spreadsheet which is convincing. Analysts think that spreadsheets do analysis. For managers, spreadsheets are about persuasion, not analysis. That changes everything.

Keep It Simple

It is easy to make things complicated. It takes genius to make them simple. Think of e = mc² – simple, but devastating.

The more complicated a spreadsheet becomes, the less anyone can understand it. It also ...