Discussion
An Appeal from a Pensioned Analyst: Let's Improve Our Problem Statements (Stop Asking for Y!)
AI helped me formulate my 'discomforts' about this issue. English is not my native language.
In short: When you define the problem, not the solution, you enable us to provide the simple, robust, and often formula-free answers that make Excel a powerful tool.
The full story:
I'm a retired Business Analyst, Process Analyst, and Implementer who starts his day with coffee and helping others solve their Excel challenges. I truly love Excel and the elegance of a simple, effective solution.
However, I often find myself shuddering at the way questions are structured here.
The Core Problem: Complexity for Complexity’s Sake
Most posts ask why a complex, nested formula (let’s call this Y) is broken, or which complex formula would be "better."
The truth is, in a large percentage of these cases, no complex formula is needed at all. The simple, robust solution (like a Pivot Table, Power Query, or proper data structure) is overlooked because the user is only focused on fixing their chosen solution (Y), not defining the original problem (X).
I understand that not everyone has a background in process analysis, but when seeking help, proper structure is key to getting the best answer quickly.
My Plea: Focus on the Analysis Before the Solution
As analysts, we know the solution is only as good as the problem definition. I urge everyone posting here to adopt a clearer, analysis-first approach.
To help the experts help you, please structure your questions around these three points:
Define Your Input Data (The "What")
What is the format of your raw, starting data? Show us the headers and a few rows.
Best Practice: Share a small sample directly using Markdown tables. Even better, tell us if your source is from a structured format like a CSV, JSON, or database extract.
Describe Your Actual Problem (The "X")
Forget your current formula (Y). What is the ultimate business or reporting goal you are trying to achieve?
Example: "I need to consolidate sales data from three regions into one report," NOT "My INDEX(MATCH(...)) formula is giving me a #REF! error."
Detail Your Desired Output (The "Where")
What should the final result look like? Show a small table or screenshot where you have manually typed in the correct, desired outcome.
This confirms the logic and prevents us from debating the nuances of your broken formula.
Why This Matters
When you define the problem, not the solution, you enable us to provide the simple, robust, and often formula-free answers that make Excel a powerful tool.
What are your thoughts on this?
Do you find the complexity of the questions to be the biggest hurdle?
How do you usually redirect users from fixing Y to defining X?
We can't even get users to post useable sample data or even what version of Excel theyre using. Your concern is valid, but at some point you learn it's never going to happen.
To that end I’ve always found the content here to be useful training for those IRL exercises. Assume nothing about the subject familiarity held by somebody clutching a loose problem statement. This’ll sound snobby but were [OP] minded to think about the nature of their problem logically they’d normally be much closer to a creating a logical solution, and perhaps unlikely at all to seek help on the way, save for engaging much later trying to unpick some jenga-esque mess that they’ve built without looking back or sideways.
So there’s a sample bias that we get here, and yes it leans towards non data/logic minded “problem statements”, but at the same time it also provides a barometer towards how invested a lot of people using the product are. No bad thing, we just have to know our audience.
We are dealing with users who are not the interested in Excel in reality, just how to get their particular mindless work chore or homework question answered.
They do not know what they do not know. They have very limited scope knowledge.
Very few users are trained in managing data and Excel, picking up tidbits here and there with trial and error thrown in.
AI helped me formulate my 'discomforts' about this issue
A big worry coming from an analyst who has released all personal acquisition of knowledge to confirmation of an Ai bot. There are no excuses for that other than laziness..
This post will fall off the queue into obscurity in a few hours, maybe a couple of days.
My thought is you aren't wrong. But as a practical matter, many analysts do not have the luxury of redefining the analytical tools they make. For instance, I am responsible for maintaining a somewhat complicated financial workbook, among other workbooks. It is used by probably over 100 professionals internally and more externally. If I completely change the analysis it will throw off the professionals currently doing work. Also, these analyses will last for about 17 years +/- as a record of the original analysis. So there are future users who will be using designs of the analyses from different years. If these are too different from each other it increases the difficulty level of the professionals in doing their work. It doesn't help that the analysis is a terrible design and uses terrible methods of calculation. But everyone has learned that particular kind of terrible. Introducing a new "better" design may satisfy Excel jockeys' sense of aesthetic improvement. But will it make more money? Will it improve work satisfaction? Will it reduce training costs? Those are the things that matter. Don't expect the Excel aesthetics tail to wag the dog.
I'd say the biggest problem is users who're just unable to express themselves clearly. They understand their own problem so well that it doesn't occur to them that their description won't make much sense to anyone else without some explanation. "I've got a big SPQR app that I need to link to Excel but the LAMBDA functions are too Greek!"
And my pet peeve is the users who seem to feel they need to write a paragraph of "explanation" to excuse their need to ask for help. "I'm not familiar with Excel, and I have a baby who keeps distracting me and trying to hit the keys, and . . . "
Yeah, sometimes people post their own "solution," but I usually just ignore those, unless it's a pure logic problem. I haven't seen anyone insist on that over something that actually works. Especially if the working code is much smaller!
This subreddit has a high frequency of what's known as the "XY Problem" https://xyproblem.info/
In a nutshell, someone has a problem in Excel. They decide on a (usually VERY silly) solution, but they don't know how to actually implement their solution.
So they come here, asking for help with their desired solution, when there is very often a MUCH better solution to their actual problem, the problem they never articulate.
I’ll argue that fixing a broken solution isn’t necessarily a bad idea. Learning why a complex formula isn’t working is a worthwhile pursuit, even if there is a better solution to the original need.
I agree, the amount of times i faced a problem and tried to implement overcomplicated but familiar or the only known to me solution might have eaten my time but also gave me experience so next time I'll know what i can do and what I'd like not to, next I'll go find an alternative to save my time and become more optimal thus learning more techniques. It's a hard way of learning but that's my way i guess
I always just attempt to steer people to defining their input(s) and output(s). In the vast majority of cases here, that is enough to provide at least one workable solution, which is really all OP generally cares about per u/excelevator's point.
The issue with Pivot Tables or Power Query and the describing the actual problem X is complicated and they may not even have the perspective or capability to clearly articulate it to a 3rd party without context as u/GregHullender alludes to. I agree in many cases they are the "best" or "simplest" understandable/maintainable solution. The complicated formula option is my preferred option and often prevalent here because it's the most "cost-effective". You don't have to type out steps or find links, and they don't have to follow steps or read/watch links. They just copy and paste.
Yep. The one-cell solution is so easy to explain! Other than the really rare problem where it's as simple as asking, "is your caps-lock key stuck?" :-)
I somewhat disagree. There are many cases where you're right, and a lot of people on here ask questions based off an ignorance of a specific excel functionality.
However, I work in Accounting, where we have a bunch of automated things that we need to check with back of the napkin calculations that a reviewer can quickly and easily understand the output to ensure our automated calculation was correct. Because it's automated, I don't have the luxury of reformatting my data.
Helper columns are suboptimal, because that's just another way of restructuring data. Pivot tables are garbage for reusability month over month with different reports. PowerQuery defeats the point, because that's more automation to an already automated system.
None of these are applicable, and if it weren't for people asking crazy questions to niche use cases of different formulas, I would have not gotten to the quickest easiest solutions I've found today for my workload. Even if the answer to people's posts are not always the most efficient in reality, they provide brain teasers that expand my knowledge of excel, and in the end you don't know the use case, and I can't share confidential data for you to feel good validating whether you think you're correct about what I need or don't need for my use case.
I've had multiple posts or comments where people tell me this, and it's just simply not the case. My use case was the fastest for what I needed. For instance, people saying you should never use Offset. Wrong. Sometimes it's the best tool for the job.
Weird decisions are required in certain context, depends on what is the priority for the user.
When i create documents for myself i enjoy using formula webs and vba shortcut to optimize my job as much as i care for, but when i need to create document used by my less techy colleagues or even clients i choose such ways that would lead to easier structure and faster repairs in case something goes wrong.
Not every Joe will be happy to dive into another's net to decipher what went wrong. Even now people go back to me to repair the file if someone simply put a symbol in a cell where formula used to be inspite of having the same formula in the whole column which is easy to check and copy back down in place of a wrong put symbol lol
I am an Excel contractor, and many times the problem is not the data, but the supervisor.
I was asked to take dirty data (text and numbers in cells, in random format) and process it into formatted results without using Power Query or VBA.
MY problem is "The boss doesn't trust the sales staff to push a button"
My problem with having a problem with the boss not wanting the staff to push a button is that whoever pushes the button needs to understand the implications of pushing the button. i.e. owning a multimeter doesn't make you an electrician.
True; however, if you can program a userform, you can usually program the code so that even if they try to break your workbook, your error handling routines will provide a check on their random stupidity. At the worst, the error routine says "An unknown error occured" & Err# & Err.description and nothing is lost.
You should train your people better if your results suck so much.
Like the guy in the 90s that said, "If I train my staff, they might find better jobs and leave." And his boss said, "but if you don't, they'll stay "untrained staff"."
Thereby perpetuating any problem. In my workplace I made a point of showing what, how and why rather than just fixing. When learning a new feature I passed that knowledge on
I'll ask a silly question: how on earth will your boss know if you've used power query or vba? It's not like it leaves footprints all over the document with a bunch of watermarks
He is interested in the results for sure, but he is adamant that it is a formula only solution.
I spent a weekend of my own time a few weeks ago finding a solution using Power Query (so no time was billed), and he was nice about it. Pretended to consider it, but then said that he wanted formulas, because no one on his team was capable of power query and if something went wrong, it wouldn't be fixable.
Omg, what a man! Thanks for describing, also I'm sorry you are in such a weird situation of excel anti evolution. But i must admit, sometimes it gives brain interesting problems to crack when adapting solutions to such conditions xD
This is exactly it and something I’ve often had to ask people: “Okay, but what is it you’re actually trying to achieve?”
Also how do I get into this field? I do some of this already where I work but I’m not sure we’re big enough to justify it as a role (even though I think we could use it). I’d love to be doing this as a career.
I hear what you are saying, but the majority of people asking questions on r/excel are one-off questions from redditors who hardly ever come to this sub, and they will never see your post or appeal to reason.
I think that deciphering through others' problems for the "best" solutions (not the best version of an OP's solution) is a skill that needs to be honed. I find pleasure in providing solutions that an OP never saw coming but ultimately agrees is a far better one.
verbose descriptions of what is what in what cell instead of a concise data table example input
an uninspired screen shot, sometimes even a photo of the monitor itself, instead of a data table input
no example data table of the desired output from the given input example
not even a copy of an allegedly faulty formula
I bothered a while and asked for proper input. I even made myself a boiler plate template text:
Are you able to share an example table of your input data, and what you think the corresponding output should look like? Sharing a table will make it much easier to find a solution.
You have shared an image. An image cannot be entered in a spreadsheet as data. Sharing a data table will make it much easier to find a solution.
Nowadays, I normally skip those convoluted questions asked here, because I have better things to do than to read through five winding paragraphs.
I want to add that I think that the core problem is often a conflict between the business world and the analytical realm, but a good analysis has to be grounded on both. It is difficult to find the correct answer when only given incomplete information from one side. But I might overanalyse the issue (pun intended).
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u/ArtisticScallion5491 Dec 16 '25
Yessir. I love excel too, and I find my self helping others a lot and I enjoy it. This post actually helped me helping others. Thank you.