Episode 38: You can’t have Agile Planning without Building Models

Guest: Richard Creeth

Most businesses rely on spreadsheets as a tool to inform, and to drive decision-making. Often these spreadsheets contain models where certain inputs drive calculations to produce outputs. Examples of common calculations include [Units] * [Price] or sales projections. Because spreadsheets are so ubiquitous, easy and (sometimes) FUN to build models in, they tend to proliferate across businesses, like weeds. This is where well-known limitations around controls, auditability, scalability, collaboration and accuracy begin to dilute the benefits of using them. And yet – a business cannot succeed without these models.

In this episode Richard Creeth who is a physicist-turned-UK Chartered Accountant talks about the art and science of modeling a business, why it is indispensable, and how to transcend the limitations of spreadsheets to take full advantage of all that technology has to offer, including Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered predictive modeling.