PASS BA 2015 Excel.TV Presentations Preview

2015 PASS BA Conference

The PASS BA Conference will be held on April 20-22, 2015 in Santa Clara, California.

PASS was originally known in the SQL Server world.  The SS in PASS = SQL Server.  After a few years of honing the program, they are ready for their most robust Business Analytics conference to date.  And they are smart enough to realize that you shouldn’t have an analytics conference in the Microsoft space without including Excel.  And boy, have they put together an ALL-STAR lineup.

This year, the conference has a large list of Excel speakers:

• Chandoo – The Pointy-Haired Dilbert from Chandoo.org
• Rob Collie – Founder of PowerPivotPro.com
• Bill Jelen aka Mr Excel – Publisher of Excel Books and Host at MrExcel.com
• Avi Singh – Principal Consultant at PowerPivotPro
• Mike Allington – Owner at Excelerator BI
• Ken Puls – The Excel Guru himself
• Zack Barresse – Excel Author host at ExcelTables.com
• Bob Phillips –  Excel BI Engineer at visiBardd ld.

Oh Yeah, We Will Be There Too

Jordan Goldmeier

Creating Outstanding Spreadsheet Models

This is an hour-long discussion on creating outstanding spreadsheet models in which Jordan Goldmeier proposes three conceptual points to optimize: layout & design; code & formulas; and presentation. He will go through each topic and provide the audience with directives to build better spreadsheet models. Most importantly, Jordan will provide the audience with the confidence and tools to apply such principles across spreadsheet models in all fields.

Making Better Decisions with Data

What cognitive biases exist that prevent us from using data correctly–and how can we mitigate their effects? This session provides the audience with a review of common cognitive biases and places them in the context of past failures of data to predict and handle uncertainty. If we know these biases exist, we can use them to our advantage and avoid instances in which they might mislead us. This presentation will show the audience how to make better decisions with the data they already have.

Rick Grantham

Creating an Effective Reporting Strategy : Tools, Metrics, Analytics

This session provides you with guidelines for what you should be measuring, what tools to use to report on what you are measuring, and how to improve the user adoption of reporting tools. Learn how to:

• Determine the most appropriate BI tools to use given your organization’s BI maturity and what key performance indicators (KPIs) you should be using
• Identify the most effective way to tie KPIs to your organization’s strategic direction
• Determine the appropriate analytic direction to take once a KPI measurement is missed (stop light turns red)

This presentation will show the audience how to develop a reporting strategy that optimizes user adoption.

Making Informed Decisions: Guidelines for Creating an Effective Dashboard

This session will provide guidelines for developing a dashboard that helps your organization make better-informed decisions. By attending this session, you will:

• Determine the best ways to scope your dashboard project, including tips for gathering requirements and eliciting feedback
• See what’s required to build an effective dashboard, from documenting query mockups to creating dashboard prototypes.

Rick will go through every step of the requirements gathering process and provide the audience with LIVE demonstrations at every step, including sample mockups and real-life examples of how to best scope your dashboard. After this session, you will know when you should (and when you should not) start your KPIs with your company’s annual report. You will be armed with the most efficient process to create the most effective dashboards.

Oz du Soleil

The Pain and Glory of Data Preparation

Data science, predictive analysis … the glamorous stuff makes headlines. But one realm of analytics is only for the bold. It takes a special kind of person to merge, purge, cleanse, and shape data in preparation for the fancy jobs. Without this dirty work, analysis can go wrong. The results can range from embarrassment to imprisonment.

This dirty part of analytics isn’t formally taught. There are no standard tricks for cleaning data. Strategy and experience are the data warrior’s weapons.

People who can clean and shape data are true heroes: They can remove duplicates, get data into the right fields, merge data, and so on. Sometimes it’s elegant. Other times, it’s ugly. The result is that any, analysis, and suggestions are rooted in trustworthy data quality.

In this session, you’ll learn strategies for assessing data quality, tips for cleaning and shaping data and determining how clean is “clean enough”, ideas for creating policies and processes that can guide you when working with unclean data, and which Excel features are most useful during prep work.

Are You Going?

If so, leave a message below and let us know. If not, what sort of presentations would you like to hear at the PASS Business Analytics Conference?