The spreadsheet is the most widely used programming environment on Earth, the most trusted source of truth in any organisation, and the only tool that has never been replaced by any of the thousands of tools designed to replace it.
Excel has approximately 1.1 billion users. This makes it a more popular programming language than Python, JavaScript, Java, and Go combined. Nobody calls it a programming language because calling it a programming language would require acknowledging that the CFO is a developer, and the CFO is not emotionally prepared for this.
The Test Coordinator uses spreadsheets the way other people use databases: as the authoritative record of reality. His software defect spreadsheet — 238 rows, colour-coded, with severity ratings that are never wrong — is the only accurate document in any project he touches. His Stockholm coffee shop spreadsheet — 23 rows, with columns for roast profile, pour-over availability, and barista knowledge — is the only accurate guide to caffeine in Sweden. The Product Manager has a roadmap. The project manager has a Gantt chart. The Test Coordinator has a spreadsheet, and the spreadsheet is the only one that describes what is actually happening.
“The spreadsheet is the map of reality. Everything else is the brochure.”
— The Lizard
Why the Spreadsheet Wins
The spreadsheet wins because the spreadsheet has zero configuration overhead. There is no schema to define. There is no migration to run. There is no ORM to configure. You open it. You type. The data exists. This is Boring Technology at its most fundamental: the tool that works because it demands nothing of you before it starts working.
JIRA requires a project, a board, a workflow, issue types, custom fields, a permission scheme, and an administrator who understands the difference between a Kanban board and a Scrum board. A spreadsheet requires a row and a column. The spreadsheet was operational before the JIRA administrator finished the login page.
This is why every organisation runs on spreadsheets regardless of what the IT department believes it runs on. The official tool has a six-week implementation timeline. The spreadsheet has a six-second implementation timeline. The spreadsheet was in production before the official tool’s requirements document was finished — and the requirements document was written in a spreadsheet.
The Test Coordinator’s Spreadsheets
The Test Coordinator maintains at minimum two spreadsheets at any given time. One tracks software. One tracks coffee. Both use the same methodology: sequential IDs, never reused. Severity ratings. Status tracking. Handwritten annotations in the margins that contain more information than the cells themselves.
The software spreadsheet has 238 rows. Each row is a defect. Each defect has a description, a severity, a status, and an assignment. The spreadsheet is the only document in the project that accurately describes what the software does, what it does not do, and what it does that it shouldn’t.
The coffee spreadsheet has 23 rows. Each row is a Stockholm café. Each café has a roast profile, an espresso quality rating calibrated against Rocket Bean as the reference standard, and a pour-over availability column with three values: “Available,” “Not available,” and the damning “They have a V60 but don’t know how to use it.”
Both spreadsheets are maps of reality. Both are maintained by the only person willing to measure.
Measured Characteristics
Excel users worldwide: ~1.1 billion
People who call Excel a programming language: ~0
People who write formulas more complex than SQL: the CFO
Official project management tools replaced by spreadsheets: all of them
(the spreadsheet was in production before the requirements doc was finished)
(the requirements doc was written in a spreadsheet)
Test Coordinator spreadsheet rows (software): 238
Test Coordinator spreadsheet rows (coffee): 23
Accuracy (spreadsheet vs Gantt chart): 97% vs optimistic
Accuracy (spreadsheet vs JIRA board): 97% vs "updated last sprint"
Time to operational (JIRA): 6 weeks
Time to operational (spreadsheet): 6 seconds
The Squirrel's proposal: a SpreadsheetReplacementFramework
with GraphQL and real-time collaboration
The Lizard's response: *opens a new sheet*
See Also
- Test Coordinator — The spreadsheet’s primary practitioner
- Coffee — The subject of the second spreadsheet
- Pour Over — Reviewed in the coffee spreadsheet
- JIRA — The tool that the spreadsheet replaced before it was installed
- Boring Technology — The principle the spreadsheet embodies
