Getting Access to Spreadsheet Models for Managers

Spreadsheet Models for Managers

The term analysis denotes the separation of a system or entity into parts. For example, when we talk about the staff of a company in terms of employee categories, such as Senior Management, Administrative, Engineering Manager, and so on, we're performing an analysis of the employee population.

When we perform synthesis we combine a collection of elements into a whole. For example, when we compute the total cost of desk chairs, we can compute the cost of desk chairs by employee category, and then add up those subtotals.

We do this because it makes complex problems more tractable. Often the components that result from an analysis are very similar, except for the values of a few parameters, so we can use the same techniques for each piece. Or it might happen that different teams have to work on each piece, and using analysis, we can apply more brain power to the problem in parallel.