Excel Data Analysis: Modeling and Simulation Review

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(More customer reviews)I was a graduate student of Professor Guerrero at The College of William and Mary and have to recommend this book. For those unfortunates who did not have him as an instructor, this is a book that gives you the experience of spending time with him in the classroom. The practical application of Excel as a modeling and simulation tool is delivered in a conversational style that engages the reader and occasionally generates a chuckle. Yes, a chuckle in a text that includes the words Excel, Modeling and Simulation in the title. However, inbetween the chuckles is solid theory and application. It's a clever text.
I would recommend this book if only for the discussion of the feng shui of worksheet development - as users, we sometimes don't think through the design of the excel workbook. We build and link, build and link, build and link...
So, Senior Brain, I put my workbook in your hands...

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This book is written for the students and practitioners who are looking for a single introductory Excel-based resource that covers three essential business and analytical skills-Data Analysis, Business Modeling, and Simulation of Complex Problems. The focus of the book is clearly on analysis of problems for decision making, yet detailed explanations regarding how to use Excel tools are provided. After many years of teaching and consulting, it is abundantly clear to me that for most students, a good example is worth its weight in gold. This book contains many excellent examples in each chapter, some simple and others more complex, and there is an abundance of exhibits to guide the student through the maze of steps necessary for each analysis.The content is quite diverse: data presentation - the Feng Shui of spreadsheets, effective communication and collaboration, data preparation - import, scrub, manipulate data, data analysis - statistical methods: descriptive, inferential, and predictive, Design of Experiments, modeling - deterministic, probabilistic, What-if, Scenarios, simulation - quantifying uncertainty, Monte Carlo Simulation, optimization - constrained, Linear Programming, non-linear models, Goal Seek.Couple these features with detailed discussions of how to realistically organize and extract insight from complex problems, and I believe you have a unique educational combination in one book.

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Winning Decisions: Getting It Right the First Time Review

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(More customer reviews)A relative glut of periodicals and books exist on decisionmaking, whether personally or professionally. Many have solid foundations, many are commercialized tripe. In MAKING DECISIONS, authors Russo and Shoemaker hit on a timely subject for professional managers or entrepreneurs. The economy has plummeted and the stock market has deflated propelling each individual responsble for their company's path to success into crucial, perhaps vital decisions on a daily basis. And the rapid rate of change is forcing all executives and managers to make decisions faster.
Given the current environment, it is well worth the time to revisit an executive/manager's most basic of tasks: making a decision...a subject devoid of attention except in academic journals or business books. In a straightforward, well-presented fashion, the authors break down the decisionmaking process into four steps:
1. Framing or deciding what you are going to decide-and not decide;
2. Gathering intelligence-real intelligence, and not just information that will support your internal biases;
3. Coming to conclusions-determining how your company acts on the intelligence it gathers, and;
4. Learning from experience.
The authors guide the reader through each of the steps providing insight into the process, highlighting key concepts, and providing case studies and worksheets so the reader can begin to track their own issues at hand. Russo and Shoemaker have presented this material in such a way as to demystify the "process" of decisionmaking. The "process" gets so much attention as being clandestine, complex and erudite. However, by providing a detailed framework reflecting a relatively mechanical and logical process to making a decision, the authors have uncorked the mystery. When confronted with the need to assess a situation, gather information and reach a decision, most managers depend on a hit-or-miss approach. This approach is different from executive-to-executive and is measured relative to the frequency and experience an executive may have "putting out the proverbial fire." While there's nothing inherently wrong or incorrect about this type of venerable process, this process typically results in a lower-end spectrum result when nothing but mid-high to high results will suffice as a necessary competitive edge.
The alternative approach presented by the authors allows executives/managers to reframe issues by asking such questions as "What is the crux of the issue that I am facing?" so that they don't end up solving the wrong problem (i.e. analogous to "looking from the outside in"). It also allows them to increase their options by doing such things as "not necessarily taking yes for an answer," when it comes to initial research findings. In fact, these alternatives may result in something quite creative and innovative, a veritable whack on the side of the head.
As they should, the authors stress to the reader that improving one's decisionmaking skills is not an ironclad guarantee to success. Execution of a solid operating (business) plan and being in the right place at the right time (luck) are factors tantanmount to any successful venture. However, it is rational and logical that if one makes better decisions, one's odds of success are bound to increase. And, as one gains experience in making decisions and acting upon the achieved results, desired or not, success rates grow exponentially.
A solid read.

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