Flattening the learning curve

I recently completed a large Power BI report for a major corporation. It was a lot of work, a lot of fun, and a ton of learning. In addition to mastering the art of the bookmark and formatting the heck out of my visuals, I improved my DAX skills slightly and my Power Query Editor skills significantly. All of these were wins, without a doubt. But the hardest thing I encountered was my constant re-evaluation of how I was building the report. Every time I completed a step (built a necessary visual, added a crucial DAX measure) I realized that there were better ways to solve those same problems. Better than what I had just done.

And if only I had the time, I would go back and change them all. But here’s the catch: it’s not as if I realized these possible improvements weeks or months after the report was completed. I was coming up with them within hours or days after I completed the work. So my perfectionist self would go back and re-work what I could–thereby using precious hours that could have gone into a new visual, measure or page.

Needless to say, I put in many un-billable hours because I felt like I would deliver a better product if I re-worked it. I consider that un-billable because I don’t expect a client to pay for my learning curve. Someday, I hope the learning curve will flatten just a little. One way I am trying to speed up the process is to avidly read all the blogs and watch all the YouTube I can. Here’s a post from Paul Turley that I recommend you read if you have ever been in the situation I just described:

https://sqlserverbi.blog/2020/07/12/doing-power-bi-the-right-way/

Make learning part of your between-projects routine. That’s the only way I can think of to flatten the learning curve.

Photo Credit: Ben Klewais on Unsplash