Lecture Friday December 14: Mohammad Mojtahedzadeh and Rod MacDonald

[Stephen Guerin]

TITLE: Working with Visualization and Systems Thinking Tools in Spreadsheet for
Better Results

SPEAKERS:
Mohammad Mojtahedzadeh, Rod MacDonald
Attune Group, Inc
Albany, NY

LOCATION: Redfish Conference Room, 624 Agua Fria Street, Santa Fe NM
TIME: Friday, December 14, 12:30p
     
Lunch will be available for purchase for $5.

ABSTRACT: The use of spreadsheets to organize and manipulate data is ubiquitous
in business, government and nonprofits.  However, tracing explicit and implicit
assumptions, communicating the logic, and auditing spreadsheets remain a
daunting task.  Expos? is an add-on to Microsoft Excel that brings visualization
and systems thinking capabilities to the spreadsheet. It allows users to more
efficiently audit, analyze, understand, and communicate their spreadsheet
models.  In this presentation, through simple examples, we will demonstrate how
systems thinking techniques can be used to better understand spreadsheets
models.

The systems thinking modeling capabilities in Expos? helps organize and
structure the data and carefully chose the most relevant metrics and key trends
in data dashboards and reports. Managers examine repots every day to keep
informed about the performance of their organization. The key to successful
design of data dashboards and reports is to pick the ?right? metrics to monitor
the most appropriate trends.

About Expos? 2.0:
Expos? 2.0 visualizes the interrelationships among the cells and variables in a
spreadsheet model and organizes them in tree and causal loop diagrams.  The
sliders enable the user to quickly perform ?what if? analysis, create
comparative charts and trace the assumptions and the structure that generate the
output. Expos? allows the user to build models in the graphical environment with
the equations translated into the spreadsheet instantaneously.

About the Presenters:
Mohammad Mojtahedzadeh, Ph.D., has focused his work in the area of process
design and improvement and understanding the dynamics of nonlinear feedback
systems. Mohammad is the managing director of the Attune Group, Inc, a firm that
provides management consulting, tools and techniques for collaborative strategy
development. He also collaborates with the System Dynamics Group at the
University at Albany.  Mohammad has served as a consultant to private companies,
nonprofit organizations and public agencies in North America. He has also been
an Assistant Professor at the Department of Industrial Engineering at the
University of Yazd, in Iran, where he taught system dynamics and quantitative
analysis for decision-making.  Mohammad holds a Ph.D. from the University at
Albany specializing in system dynamics as well as a B.Sc. in Mathematics and a
M.A. in Economics, both from the University of Tehran, in Iran.

Rod MacDonald, Ph.D., focuses on policy formulation and development for
government and non-profit organization. He is the director of the Initiative for
System Dynamics in the Public Sector located at Rockefeller College of Public
Affairs and Policy at the University at Albany. He earned his Ph.D. in Public
Administration and Policy from the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and
Policy at the University at Albany where his graduate studies focused on the
development of computer simulation models as decision support tools. Rod has
used the tools and techniques of system dynamics computer simulation modeling to
analyze deposit insurance issues in the banking industry and to address problems
in the delivery of mental health services, fleet maintenance, Social Security
disability programs, supply chain management, DWI recidivism, traffic safety,
the criminal justice system and the management of large scale construction
projects.