Excel Basics to Blackbelt: An Accelerated Guide to Decision Support Designs [Hardcover]

Elliot Bendoly (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0521889057 | ISBN-13: 978-0521889056 | Publication Date: July 7, 2008 | Edition: 1

Excel Basics to Blackbelt is intended to serve as an accelerated guide to decision support designs. Its structure is designed to enhance the skills in Excel of those who have never used it for anything but possibly storing phone numbers, enabling them to reach to a level of mastery that will allow them to develop user interfaces and automated applications. To accomplish this, the major theme of the text is "the integration of the basic"; as a result readers will be able to develop decision support tools that are at once highly intuitive from a working-components perspective but also highly significant from the perspective of practical use and distribution. Applications integration discussed includes the use of MS MapPoint, XLStat and RISKOptimizer, as well as how to leverage Excel's iteration mode, web queries, visual basic code, and interface development. There are ample examples throughout the text.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"There's nothing else out there that covers the full potential of Excel in the way that this text does. It's easy to read even if you're a novice to graphical decision support tool development, but it has gems that I doubt some of the most advanced developers are even aware of. The presentation of various approaches to leveraging Excel with other applications such as MS MapPoint, XLStat and RISKOptimizer is particularly valuable. Similarly eye-opening are the unique tactics Bendoly presents for capitalizing on many of the built-in but underutilized capabilities of Excel. The application examples provided serve as the building blocks for a whole universe of DSS development now made accessible to readers at all levels. This book should become a standard reference for analysts and consultants regardless of industry."
Daniel Bachrach, University of Alabama

"This is a must book for people seeking to get the best out of the wonderful tool of Excel. It fits in the sweet spot between the "Excel made simple" and the math and stat based Excel technical manuals. The practical feel of the book is conveyed through such evocative section headings as Harvesting Intelligence and Leveraging Dynamic Analysis. Though each of the chapters is worthy of comment, I think that Chapter 9, Scenario Generation and Optimization is of particular interest to managers wanting to put some real muscle behind their search for the best decision in the face of uncertainty. All together, this book is a major contribution to the business literature."
Richard B. Chase, University of Southern California

"Excel is the duct tape of decision support - handy, pervasive, and surprisingly effective. Bendoly's book helps users unlock its considerable power while avoiding costly errors. You'll be amazed at all you can do with a spreadsheet."
Thomas H. Davenport, Babson College

Book Description

Excel Basics to Blackbelt is intended to serve as an accelerated guide to decision support designs. Its structure is designed to enhance the skills in Excel of those who have never used it for anything but possibly storing phone numbers, enabling them to reach a level of mastery that will allow them to develop user interfaces and automated applications.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 344 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press; 1 edition (July 7, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521889057
• ISBN-13: 978-0521889056
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #385,477 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #22 in Books > Computers & Technology > Business & Culture > Technical Support

More About the Author

Dr. Bendoly is an associate professor in Information Systems and Operations Management and the 2009-11 Caldwell Research Fellow at Emory University's Goizueta Business School. He is also currently the Area Coordinator for the faculty in his department. Prior to academia he worked as a research engineer for the Intel Corporation. He holds a PhD from Indiana University in the fields of Operations Management and Decision Sciences, with an Information Systems specialization in ERP and Knowledge Management. He has served as an instructor and developer of SAP implementation and ABAP/4 programming curriculum. More recently he has been involved with coursework on IT-supported service operations and DSS development for managers.

He is an associate editor for the Journal of Operations Management and the Decision Sciences Journal, and on the editorial board of Production and Operations Management. Aside from these journals, he has also published in Information Systems Research, MIS Quarterly, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Service Research, EJOR, IJOPM and Decision Support Systems. Dr. Bendoly is also the co-editor of Strategic ERP Extension and Use (Stanford Press 2005) and the Handbook of Research in Enterprise Systems (Sage 2010); He is also the author of Excel Basics to Black Belt (Cambridge Press 2008). His current research focuses on operational issues in IT utilization and behavioral dynamics in operations management.

Related to his teaching and text references, he also manages the group "Excel Blackbelts" on LinkedIn. Examples of student work based on his teaching can be found on his YouTube channel (ebendoly)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A novel look at the power of Excel!, July 17, 2008

By 

Elizabeth C. Whitley (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Excel Basics to Blackbelt: An Accelerated Guide to Decision Support Designs (Hardcover)

A novel look at the power of Excel. Great for people new to Excel2007, but also easily transferable to Excel2003. I had no idea it was this easy to develop amazing visual applications in Excel - The seamlessness of integration between Excel and other applications as well as the Internet was a new one for me as well.

I'm a Psychology Professor, and not in any way an "excel geek" and I found this book approachable, useful, and surprising! It's a relief to finally have something like this on my desk. Where have books like this been all this time?"

E. Christine Whitley

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars SO USEFUL! Broad application possibilites., July 17, 2008

By 

EH (Iowa City, IA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Excel Basics to Blackbelt: An Accelerated Guide to Decision Support Designs (Hardcover)

I had no idea what Excel could do for me before reading this book. I'm in the field of medicine. I was able to create a customizable interface for large research experiments. This allowed me to do repeated experiments with variable numbers of groups, subjects and variables.

I automatically generated worksheets for data entry, statistical analysis, and elegant methods to present this data (including color, legends, error bars, etc.).

This made my work so much more efficient and my life SO MUCH EASIER!

Thanks, Dr. Bendoly.