Last year I wrote this article about the Experienced Excel User that wants to discover Power BI. I noticed quite some people have read this article, so many thanks for that! In this article I share my story how I became a Power BI Expert.
My working career start at KPMG Financial Due Diligence (2011)
In 2011 I started working at KPMG Financial Due Diligence. In short: before a company acquires another company the buying company may investigate the entity to be sold. Before I started my first project I had a very extensive Excel training of about 10 full days. We went far beyond using SUMIF, VLOOKUP etc.. We learned to set up a large Excel model of many source tables. From that we built in 3 weeks an Excel databook with numerous financial analysis. This databook contained analysis of the Balance sheet, Profit&Loss statement and Cash Flow as well as non-financial elements. Excel models were often about dozens of well structured pages. Of course we didn’t (or shouldn’t) make any mistake, so all tables on all Excel pages reconciled to all the other pages. All in all that was a perfect basis for me to further improve my data analytics skills.
A couple years later I started working as Finance and Control professional (in short: every year you are part of a client’s Finance & Control team). So no consultant but actually temporarily part of the team. In many of the assignments I was working on the heavy Excel data skills. Examples are building models where the board of a company could investigate / play around with scenario models for doing investments, M&A, or margin analysis. And yes, that all in Excel ( I know what you may think now, I just share my story 😉 ).
My discovery of Power BI (2015)
It was in that phase (2015) where I saw Power Pivot for the first time in a Youtube video. After a short while I also discovered Power Query (for those who don’t know: two Excel add-on’s for data transformation and modelling). Yes again Excel tools! Power BI was already existing (since 2015) but in the very first beginning I didn’t really notice that. Luckily my assignment ended and I did not have new assignment yet. That was the right moment to try out all these 3 Power tools.
I watched hours and hours of different YouTube channels, such as Enterprise DNA, Curbal, Guy in a Cube, or BI Elite. I also read the book Power Pivot and Power BI from Rob Collie and Avi Singh.
After some weeks of testing I shared a presentation/demo of Power BI to all of my colleagues. See this as a performance demo with great fun, where I was very excited about my new discovery. Soon afterwards I made a short training for most of our colleagues and externals in our professional field of Finance & Control. The feedback was great, I knew I was on the right track.
However, after these sessions I realized I was hitting a ceiling, which is the end of the Excitement phase. Let me explain: I was very good in using Excel for business reporting and analytics, but I didn’t really understand Power BI. Why? I couldn’t stop thinking in separate Excel cells, and start properly thinking in (Power BI) tables.
Examples of the ceiling at the end of the first Excitement phase (2017)
For example it took me hours to really understand (1) the difference between the DAX functions SUM and SUMX, while that extra X was just one character. (2) Also, I did not understand why you should use Power BI dashboards as an addition to Power BI reports. (3) And also, while using Power BI I continuously thought how I would do something in Excel. (4) and many other things. This was clearly my storm phase, being in between Excel and Power BI.
“I couldn’t already stop thinking in separate Excel cells, and start properly thinking in Power BI tables”
My Power BI acceleration phase (also 2017)
After a while (I can’t remember how long anymore, a guess is about 20 Power BI practice hours) I finally understood the difference when to use SUM and when to use SUMX etc. That was such an enlightenment, since now I could really start building reports with my newly acquired skills. That was also to moment that my current employer asked me to start setting up Power BI analyst training sessions. I was (and am) very happy with doing that, since that is where I see so many example where people struggle. After every training I have tried to improve my learning skills in better transferring the knowledge of Power BI.
Power BI implementation phase (2018)
Since around 2018 I not only give monthly Power BI training sessions at different levels, I also lead a team within my company in further developing Power BI. As a Finance & Control professionals we often work a lot with data so it is not a big step to dive into the field of Power BI. With our team we have done many successful Power BI implementations, always in cooperation with the client’s IT department and client’s own employees.
In 2020 I even did my first corporate level Power BI assignment on global scale, with many different stakeholders and under high pressure. This was a very successful and personally rewarding assignment.
10 year summary (2011 – 2021)
All in all I feel I am very passionate about Power BI, and would like to share this with everyone who is into the field of data / analytics / reporting.
After many hard working years and thousands of hours of experience, hundreds of hours YouTube video’s, yearly attendance at the Dutch Power BI user days I realize have learned incredibly. I am very happy with reaching this stage. Hopefully I have inspired you on your Power BI data & analytics learning path. I am more than happy to further talk with you about your thoughts / experiences, or share my experience in (online) Power BI user groups or community events.