Excel has a built in formula/function that makes finding the minimum value in a range of cells easy. If we assume your numbers are in A1:A100 you would simply use the MIN formula like shown below;
=MIN(A1:A100)
There is however, one draw-back with this. That is, it includes cells that contain 0 (zeros). This can give you unexpected results. So how do we omit zeros from our average?
SMALL Function/Formula
By far the most efficient method is to use the SMALL and COUNTIF formula as shown below;
SMALL Returns the k-th smallest value in a data set.
=SMALL(A1:A100,COUNTIF($A$1:$A$100,0)+1)
Where the countif is counting the zeros in the range (+1) and is used to tell SMALL to return the k-th smallest value.
DMIN
The other method is via the DMIN function. This function is part of the Database functions and all are extremely useful when/if you need specify multiple criteria. The DMIN , in the case of numbers being in A2:A100 (A1 should be a heading) we could use the DMIN like below;
=DMIN($A$1:$A$100,1,$B$1:$B$2)
Where “1” represents the relative column position to average in the range A1:A100
B1 has an exact copy of your heading in A1
B2 houses the expression >0 or <>0 if have negative numbers you want included.
Array MIN
This method is the least efficient. By creating an array formula we can use the MIN formula as shown below to omit zeros;
=MIN(IF($A$1:$A$1004 >0,$A$1:$A$100))
=MIN(IF($A$1:$A$1004 <>0,$A$1:$A$100))
As these are array formulas they MUST be entered via Ctrl+Shift+Enter.