https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2015/5/21/office-mes...
[0] https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/spilled-range-ope...
There is no other planning tool in the software industry that can answer “what if I changed that” as seamlessly as excel.
Planning is not about its absolute numbers but about its sensitivity to inputs and assumptions.
A single spreadsheet used locally is probably the best imaginable tool for answering "what if I changed that."
That same sheet shared across an organization suddenly becomes a game of "what caused that change."
who doesn't love spreadsheets? the average corporate employee holds a death grip on google sheets even if you spend $1m on software that theoretically should keep them out of it.
i've seen countless instances across engineering/data, product, marketing, and recruiting where data is smuggled out of an HRIS/ATS/CRM/ERP to create static structure, improved personal tracking, note-taking, data analysis, realtime team collaboration, etc. all wrapped up in a mini database.
"This will be genuinely extraordinary for what organizations, particularly the best organizations, can achieve. But if each previous ideology of the corporation illuminated something real about its character and potential, each also, in the fullness of time, deformed it. The financial ideology was blind to what could not be quantified; and the AI ideology, I suspect, will be blind to what cannot be made legible as a workflow."
Really, spreadsheets are fine, they probably hit that sweet spot for easy to get something together and deep enough to express complex needs. But I have to admit, now that I have better tools I don't enjoy doing work in them anymore.
I have some reason to believe my team was the first within Apple SQA to lean heavily into that, but I’d love to hear of earlier examples.