Modeling for Insight

It is widely recognized that spreadsheets are error-filled, their creators are overconfident, and the process by which they are developed is chaotic. It is less wellunderstood that spreadsheet users generally lack the skills needed to derive practical insights from their models. Modeling for insight requires skills in establishing a base case, performing sensitivity analysis, using back-solving, and (when necessary) carrying out optimization and simulation. Some of these tasks are made possible only with specialized add-ins to Excel. In this paper we present an overview of the skills and software tools needed to model for insight.

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