Structure creates flow

Yesterday, after we concluded Corporate financial accounting class, one of my colleagues or should i say “Consultant” in Mr Frances words, volunteered to take us through on some tutorials on how to clean up a dirty data and have it ready for analysis. I can confidently say that was the first time i was truly gaining some good insight in to the use of excel. It was complex and easy at the same time. David was excellent at guiding us every step of the way, patient with the many of us who kept taking him back and ensured that we resolved every problem that we encountered.

The first step to a proper data analyis is having a well organised data. Here are some of the steps we had taken to put some order in place in our working document

1. Ensure there are no empty cells : A major rule to working efficiently with excel is to ensure you have no empty cells. To achieve this, we had to duplicate some rows, ensure every entry is labelled appropriately, even if it needed to be repeated. Going through this process was a major highlight for me. it emphasised the importance of Structure and Flow. No structure = No flow
2. Categorisation: Every data set belongs to a particular category. Categorization helps in sorting different types of data based on type and implication. Categorization plays a major role in comparison analysis of different data sets.
3. Use the magic formula: There is a formular to every madness and more than one way to achieve the same thing. The last thing we did before creating the pivot table was applying the “VLOOKUP” formular for a more advanced categorisation. At first it didn’t work out as expected, David was trying to figure it out until Chima suggested what the problem was and immediately it made sense to everyone. This taught me two things : part of teaching is acknowledging that we do not know everything and must stay open to learn new ways of solving familiar problems.

In all, i can say that i’m going to be having a really good relationship with excel going forward. I am excited and grated for progress.

#MMBA5