Use COUNTIFS, not FREQUENCY, to Calculate Frequency Distribution Tables for Charting Histograms
Because the Texas and California governors have been bickering over the Texan's attempt to poach California employers, I got curious about the distribution of...
Use Common-Age Excel Charts to Compare and Forecast Performance for the Same Number of...
In the early lives of new products or new stores, managers often are anxious to track and improve sales performance. To do so, it's...
Find Leading Indicators Using Automated Cross Correlations in Excel, Part 2
In Part 1 of this discussion about automated cross correlations, I explained how to set up the cross-correlation Data Table shown below, in columns...
Find Leading Indicators Using Automated Cross Correlations in Excel, Part 1
It all seems so simple...
To improve your forecasts of sales or other measures, you simply need to find leading indicators...measures that are highly correlated...
The First Spreadsheet Dashboard: Mini-Graph Reports in Lotus 1-2-3
This is the first dashboard report ever created with spreadsheets. I worked on this reporting technique in the early 1980s, then included this report...
The Basics of Professional Excel Charting
When you're reporting, you can't run a cable from your data to your readers' brains. But the next-best alternative is to use great charts.
By "great...
Show Useful Year-to-Date Variance Charts in Your Excel Dashboards
Many companies have a difficult time creating charts of spending variances. In fact, many companies rely on charts that are nearly useless for that...
Should You Raise Prices? Should You Lower Them? These Excel Charts Can Help You...
In the early 1980s I was the CFO of a company owned by a man whose first instinct was to cut prices.
When business was...
Map Costs and Sales in Excel with a Classic Breakeven Chart
When I worked as a CFO, my monthly reports always included a breakeven chart. It was one of the most popular reports I produced.
But...
How to Make Top-Ten Charts Easier to Read
Managers need to know where the greatest opportunities and the worst problems can be found. This is why top-item figures are so popular.
These figures...
Latest Articles
Getting Radical with Excel
It's time to think about Excel in a radical new way—when we use it to work with business or economic data.
It's time, in fact,...
How Fast Is Too Fast?
(Originally published in Inc Magazine.)
What typically tops the list of worries of the chief executive officers of fast growing companies? Financing that growth, according...
How to Smooth Data by Using the TREND Function
Years ago, I read that Prof. William S. Cleveland had suggested that data could be smoothed by calculating a centered trendline through adjacent data—a...
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