CP019: 6 Tips for Best Practice Modeling – Interview with Danielle from Plum Solutions

In the 19th session of Chandoo.org podcast, lets talk about modeling best practices.

What is in this session?

I am very happy to interview my good friend, blogger, author, excel trainer & business-women – Danielle Stein Fairhurst for this session. I first met Danielle when I went to Sydney, Australia in April 2012. Our friendship & collaboration grew a lot in the last 2.5 years. She is a great speaker & trainer. This episode is loaded with her trademark style commentary, explanation & tips for better modeling. I hope you will enjoy it.

In this podcast, you will learn,

  • Introduction to Danielle & her work
  • 6 Tips for Best Practice Modeling
    • Write consistent formulas
    • Avoid hard-coding
    • Smart referencing
    • Ditch the bad habits
    • Document assumptions
    • Format & label things
  • Resources for learning more

Quickly convert numbers stored as text [tip]

Here is a quick tip to start the week.

Often, we end up with a situation where a bunch of numbers are stored as text.

In such cases, Excel displays a warning indicator at the top-left corner of the cell. If you click on warning symbol next to the cell, Excel shows a menu offering choices to treat the error.