コンサルティング業務には欠かせない Excel に関する表現のレッスンです。
スムーズに、そして自信を持ってデータや計算方法について説明することはチームと協同し、上司とのコミュニケーションに役立ちます。その為に必要なイディオムや自然な表現方法についてフォーカスします。
Using Excel to do calculations is a huge part of consulting. Talking about it smoothly and confidently will help you work with your team and communicate well with your managers. In this lesson, you will practice explaining Excel data to your teacher.
Consultants, particularly junior analysts, have to use Excel a lot. They will be well acquainted with the program and much of the vocabulary, but it is always good to review. And it's vital that they can explain the data clearly in English.
If you have used Excel, then describe it in detail to your teacher.
- What do you do in Excel?
- What do you find most difficult?
Your student may have done a lot of things in Excel. If so, then the second question is the most important, so move on to #2 quickly.
If they can't describe tasks in detail, great—they need this language.
Vocabulary
Look at the advice below, and discuss it with your teacher. First,
- clarify any new language; then
- decide if you agree.
- If you agree, do you typically follow this advice? Why or why not?
5 tips to use Excel well
- Before you start building, jot down what you are trying to measure or understand, and sketch out a few simple reports on a notepad.
- Decide on exactly the output you need. You don't want to boil the ocean.
- To minimize problems down the road, always use good quality, well-organized source data.
- Although it's a lot of fun watching Excel make visualizations of the data, you can find yourself going down a lot of unproductive rabbit holes very easily. So, stay focused.
- Perfect source data will have no blank rows or columns. Each column will have a unique name, and there will be no repeated data.
Explaining tasks
Read the task and tell your instructor if you've done it before, and if so, how big a task is it? If you've never done it, then discuss what it might require.
- Normalize data—make all the cells in a row or column consistent.
- Convert ALL CAPS to Proper case.
- Change the data for contact names: it is currently split into first name and last name in two separate cells, but it needs to be the full name in one cell instead.
- Find and remove incomplete rows.
- Build a pivot table.
- Export and visualize the data for a deck.
Vocabulary
There are some idioms and natural language in this advice. The definitions are included.
5 tips to use Excel well
1. Before you start building, jot down what you are trying to measure or understand, and sketch out a few simple reports on a notepad.
- jot down—write quickly.
- sketch out—draw quickly.
2. Decide on exactly the output you need. You don't want to boil the ocean.
- boil the ocean—be unfocused in your analysis.
- The origin of this phrase: if you need a cup of tea, do you boil a cup's worth of water, or do you boil a lot more? Don't boil the ocean! Just analyze what you need.
3. To minimize problems down the road, always use good quality source data, organized in a tabular layout.
- down the road—in the future (probably near future).
4. Although it's a lot of fun watching Excel make visualizations of the data, you can easily find yourself going down a lot of unproductive rabbit holes. So, stay focused.
- rabbit hole—endless task or topic.
5. Perfect source data will have no blank rows or columns. Each column will have a unique name, and there will be no repeated data.
- This is just language to use for a definition of clean data.
Explaining tasks
Note that size words collocate with the word "task", so: small task, big task, huge task, etc.
- Normalize data—structure a database according to normal forms in order to improve efficiency and integrity (strength or overall usefulness of the data).
- Can be a huge task, depending on the size of the dataset.
- Convert ALL CAPS to Proper case—change the letter case from capital to lower case.
- With the right Excel knowledge, this should be a small task.
- Change the data for contact names—splitting cells and merging cells (putting information from two little Excel squares into one)
- With the right Excel knowledge, this should be a small task.
- Find and remove incomplete rows—some rows will have empty cells. You may have to remove them.
- With the right Excel knowledge, this should be a small task.
- Build a pivot table—this is a key consulting task. It lets you summarize and reorganize data.
- With the right Excel knowledge, this should be a small task.
- Export and visualize the data for a deck—i.e., put the data into a presentation.
- This is probably a medium task, but it can be short if you know exactly what you want.
Think of a task that you know how to do well in Excel and explain it to your teacher.