In my brief tenure into the world of business, I got to experience many failures with technology. My jobs usually entailed a tremendous amount of Microsoft Excel based projects. While I consider myself a very strong user of Excel, many of these projects went above and beyond my skills. Excel is an incredibly powerful tool, but gaining a mastery of all the subtle programming nuances as well as learning the various tools it offers is a long process.
When faced with a project that I did not know how to do based on my prior knowledge, I would use one of two approaches to figure it out:
Guess and Check
The classic approach for math students everywhere works for technology as well. Sometimes trying to hammer through on a project you do not know how to do teaches you more about the technology more than anything else. Of course, this usually only works to accomplish your goal if you have some slight notion of how it might work.
Look it Up
When you have no idea how to do something but think it probably should, looking up how to do it can be an effective course of action. Google was my best friend in this situation. I'll admit, googling something is an acquired skill. But can yield powerful responses. There is so much information on the internet, even the most obscure issue can often have a solution online. The biggest downside to this approach is that it is completely reliant on the internet. If your internet is down, you really cannot look up how to fix the problem online.
Neither of these two methods are groundbreaking, but the combination of the two were incredibly effective and apply to all technologies, not just Excel.
