Digital Transformation
with Excel
J.D. Landgrebe, Course Author
President of DataDelve Engineer LLC Consulting; Formerly Principal Engineer, Procter and Gamble R&D
About this Course
In many businesses, important data exists in “scraps” of spreadsheets and important disconnected models. Sound familiar?
Money is lost because the data is disconnected and unstructured, destined only to be used once.
This course is designed for many types of employees, from management and administrators, to statistical users. It will show you actionable, pragmatic methods for using Microsoft Excel to unify data across your organization, increasing your organizational efficiency.
We put the material together based on a lot of consulting experience with diverse projects and teams – to help people master excel of course, but to convey bigger picture techniques for working with data and models. Excel is an ideal software vehicle for teaching such concepts.
Our four-part course framework includes specific skills and techniques like:
- How to be fluent in Excel to enable working well with large and small data sets and models (Example skill: Built-in, no memorization shortcut system)
- How to structure data for extensibility and portability (Example skill: Building multi-table models with lookup functions
- How to curate data to maximize personal and collaborator/customer useful life of data (Example skill: Cell and Range naming to curate calculation model formulas.
- Designing excellent user interfaces in Excel to encourage use of data and calculation models for collaboration and decision-making (Example skills: Column Outlines and Conditional Formatting techniques for working comfortably with large models)
What you will learn
- How to make data collaborative and portable across applications
- How to build structured, curated models and business process applications
- Personal, data and modeling skills
- How to encourage digital transformation culture
- How to better curate your personal work
- Skills for engaging internal customers
- Skills for creating order with your organization’s business data
- Skills for engaging internal customers with data products they can pick up and use for their work
- Insights on when to use Excel versus non-Microsoft tools
Who Should Attend
Functional experts, Managers and Leaders, Modeling, statistics and data science experts, Administrators, Analysts.
Duration
6 hours (with breaks)
Prerequisites
Previous, basic familiarity with Microsoft Excel on an accessible laptop
Desktop Mac or Windows Excel installed on computer (not online/Sharepoint/Teams version!)
Pricing
Individual and corporate pricing available on request
Instructors
President of DataDelve Engineer LLC Consulting; Formerly Principal Engineer, Procter and Gamble R&D
Course Syllabus
6 Hours
| Course Theme | Syllabus Topic Description |
| Big Picture | Intro course and Instructor |
| Fluency | Excel Fluency Intro |
| Fluency | Issuing commands efficiently |
| Structuring | Definition of “structured” rows/columns for data and models |
| Structuring | Making a pivot table from structured data |
| Structuring | Structured Scenario Models –an alternate structured template for calculation models |
| Fluency | Navigating within and between workbooks |
| Fluency | Navigating dialog boxes |
| Fluency | Selecting data efficiently |
| Curating | Curating data and models |
| Commands | Intro to Trainings on Excel Commands: Cost Model and Roll Length Model overviews and exploration |
| Commands | Skill modules for curating variables and models: Find/Replace, Filtering, Sorting, Naming Ranges |
| Commands | Named Cells |
| Commands | Naming Ranges |
| Commands | Find and Replace |
| Aesthetics – UI | Skill modules for Calculation Model User Interface Design: Arranging columns by granularity, Column Outlines, Freeze Panes, Conditional Formatting |
| Commands | The VLOOKUP/MATCH combo for multi-table models |
| Big Picture | Wrap-up |
