Page 105 - merged.pdf

•Eight Greatest Computer Innovations that Actually Make Life Easier 85

5 When, for example, you are happy with the one-month model and you create
the next month, error can easily creep in. Try the new month with the same
parameters as the original and see that it comes up with the same results.

6 Prepare the model using real prices and costs in the first place. Add in inflation
and currency variations at a later stage.

The financial services and insurance industries make much use of laptop computers
to aid their salesforce to bring another customer into their net. Spreadsheets enable
everybody to do this for whatever product they sell.

In summary, managers have the opportunity to become their own masters if
they learn how to bring this most powerful tool into their armoury.

On the other hand

1 Try not to fall into the trap of thinking that the financial criteria are the only
ones you need to model. It is still the function of managers to check that
other theories, such as life cycles, are taken into account in the planning
process.

2 If the situation has changed, start a fresh model or you run the danger of
adapting the situation to the model instead of the other way round.

3 Don’t let an affair with spreadsheets make you forget other tools for decision
making such as plan, execute, reflect and learn.

Idea 49 – Douglas Engelbart: ‘the mother of all demos’

This was the phrase one of Engelbart’s colleagues used to describe the groundbreaking
performance given in a demonstration in 1968. Engelbart had been working for
some time on the human–computer interface.