A few weeks ago a colleague came to me with the remark: "Say you're pretty good at Excel and Access, is it not ?". Oh well, I can handle quite reasonably my things with Office. Why are you asking ?", I asked the man just to show some interest. At that time, I did what I do best; drinking coffee.
"Well", he said "we have a issue on the site. People do not follow the procedures and just to check if they do I need a report tool. So can you build me one ?". He already had been thinking about the whole situation. That is great, I mean I love people who can solve a problem. He said to me: "Build me some data input sheets in Excel en build me a report tool in Access. Course people are more familiar with Excel then with Access. They work with the Excel tool and I will work with the Access report tool". "Of course I can build you something like this, but I won't!!", I replied meanwhile placing my coffee cup on my desk. He looked at me as if he had wet his pants, he gasped for air, his head turned red ....Before he could explode I offered him a chair, a cup of coffee and invited him for a little talk. After an hour or so and a couple cups of coffee later the situation was clear and we parted.
Yesterday came the same man over to me and thanked me for my time and patience. "You are right", he said "On the site we have discussed the risk's of not following up the procedures. It turned out that people did not understand the purpose of the procedures. Also some procedures where to complicated. I have promised to start a evaluation and people will start working accordingly".
Why this story ?
People experience many different issues in their daily work. In many cases they think these problems can be solved by building some kind of tool in Excel, Access or whatever. So they have a little chat with their local IT-guru in the hope that he/she waves his/hers magic and LOOK there is the ultimate solution. Nothing is further from the truth.
Yes, in many cases the local IT-guru starts to mumble mysterious words, bends in full concentration over the keyboard, looks with an eagle eye on the screen, fingers racing over the keyboard to produce lines with text which look to the dummy user as cryptography. The user is HAPPY, the problem will be solved !! The IT guru is HAPPY, he/she can show his/hers superhuman skill in imposing their will to the monstrous digital creature.
The office floor is a nice place to be.....
WRONG, WRONG, WRONG and once more WRONG.
You as IT guru what should you really do ?
............
Many people consider MS Office something like the "Holy Grail"
Indeed, by following the correct path MS Office can be a Blessing.
BUT, by sidestepping the correct path MS Office can truly become a Curse.