Steve Neiderhauser

Excel Models

A couple years ago I developed an Excel custom function that provides a simply way to get information from a table (Excel range).

This Excel spreadsheet provides an example. On the “Example” tab you’ll see how to use the function. Enter the “qtable” custom function into a cell along with a key and a code; if the key is in the table it will return a value.

The keys are stored on the “Cost Table” tab. An Excel defined name – “CostTable” – is used to define a range that the “qtable” function uses to lookup values. If records are added to the table you need to redefine the range of “CostTable.”

When the Excel workbook first opens, it loads the “CostTable” range into memory -- an array. If you enter new values into the table, click the “Load Costs” button and the new values are loaded into memory.

I have watched as analysts used the qtable function to simplify complex models. So feel free to use this model and modify the spreadsheet to fit your needs.

Only as good as your models

After attending an iRise innovation seminar that featured Michael Schrage, iRise sent me a copy of Michael’s book Serious Play.

Published in 2000, Serious Play is even more relevant today... because apps that model web apps are becoming more mature and available. And if your company increases its number of prototypes fourfold, it’s the equivalent of multiplying your innovation budget by four.

It’s been said that the single hardest part of building software is deciding what to build. And yet, we embrace models for defining requirements that make the process even harder. Writing a 32-page text document and then asking the customer to read it, makes it impossible for the customer to envision the system. So instead of spec-driven prototypes we should shift to prototype-driven specs.

Think of prototype-drive specs as visual requirements. Because customer are unable to describe what they want until they see it, developers need to put models in front of customers and collaborate with them to define a product. Michael Schrage puts it best:

Prototypes can be more articulate than people. Creating a dialogue between people and prototype is more important than creating dialogue between people alone.

Working as a conduit for business transactions, prototypes become the lingua franca for product management and organizational change.

Have you ever worked at a company where people babble about different ways to solve a problem? They could argue for years without any tangible results. But if one person is bold enough – or smart enough – to create a model that demonstrates her point… she wins. Because whoever creates the best prototype wins.

Prototypes overcome resistance. Now the people who wanted to only talk about the problem have two choices– state another objection or stay silent.

Cinematic Storytelling

The study of filmmaking has been divided into two separate studies -- film and screenwriting.

In Cinematic Storytelling, Jennifer Van Sijll bridges the two disciplines -- film production and screenwriting. Creating a reference for cinematic storytelling, she has brilliantly assembled 100 visual techniques. Making it easy to see how screenwriting and images dovetail, she displays script and images side by side.

Name a technique?

Visual foreshadowing -- a visual symbol, planted early, suggests an action that will take place later in the film.

Film Example: Back to the Future (clocks in opening scene).