Click here to download Podcast 12 or stream it from the player at the bottom of the page.

This programme is part 2 of a 2 part serious on collaborative modeling. Here in part 2, we talk with Dhruva Poonia, a senior manager at F1F9 in Delhi, India.

In this podcast we discuss:

• The benefits of client/modeller collaboration
• Maximizing communication
• Using previous projects as guidelines
• Language barrier and modelling in more than one language

Dhruva also talks about collaborative modelling at a local level, with two or more modellers working on a single spreadsheet simultaneously. With carefully implemented strategies, several modellers can work within a single worksheet without interfering with one another, or the integrity of the project.

Like Yann from part 1 of this podcast, Dhruva stresses the importance of written communication and the importance of email and tools like Skype chat.  Almost all of the communication between his office in Delhi and their clients around the world is done in this way, reserving phone calls for emergencies and last minute communication.

To get the most of the time difference between the Delhi office and clients around the world, Dhruva and his coworkers have shifted their workday from the typical 9 to 5, choosing to work from 11 to 7. By doing so, there is a larger overlap of office hours with European clients, allowing for more direct communication, and with it, more effective collaboration.

From a spreadsheet engineer’s standpoint, making the most out of available instruction from the conceptual modeller is of the utmost importance. The process has to begin with the conceptual modeller, however, and may require extra communication to clarify instruction.

For clarification of the term “conceptual modeller,” listeners may want to refer back to an earlier podcast with Tom Grossman about his Business Analysis Life Cycle.

This podcast will be of particular interest to contracted workers and outsourced firms, or anyone relying on specific instruction through digital communication.

We hope you enjoyed this 2 part podcast on collaborative modelling. Join us next time when we talk with Robert Thorpe about financial modelling in the healthcare sector.

About Dhruva

Dhruva Poonia is a Senior Manager at F1F9. After he joined the company in 2006 as associate analyst, he had risen up to become a senior modeller and supervisor in the spreadsheet engineers’ team in Delhi office. Along with designing and building financial models, he has also been involved in analyzing the models and assisting clients in optimizing financing structures in PFI transactions.

He has worked both on PPP/ PFI models and large investment operational models. He has broad experience on financial modelling projects across industries in different countries throughout the world; however most of his projects have been from European PFI sectors and African oil & gas sector. He is also responsible for organization development by leading the product and process developments and creating spreadsheet solutions for internal process automations.

In spreadsheet engineering terms, he is an expert in from-scratch building PFI bid models and following it through with providing on-site client support. He has earned vast experience of collaborative modelling while working as a spreadsheet engineer himself and subsequently being responsible for managing key client accounts.

If you would like to comment on any aspect of the podcast, please leave a comment below – we welcome your observations and feedback.

You can listen to the podcast on the player below, or you can subscribe to receive it automatically every time we publish it on iTunes.

This programme is the first part of a two part series on collaborative modelling. In part one, we talk with Yann Pleindoux of RebelGroup in Rotterdam, Holland.

In this podcast we discuss:

• Collaborative modelling from a conceptual perspective.
• The collaboration process, from account manager to spreadsheet engineer and back.
• Benefits of collaborative modelling.
• Potential problems while collaborating.
• Developing a working relationship with fellow collaborators.

Yann stresses communication as the most important element in successful collaboration. He recommends:

• Skype chat and email as primary communication. It can be tracked and reread at any time. Written communication makes it possible to manage more than one conversation at a time.
• The account manager or project leader needs to be as clear and explicit as possible with instructions for a spreadsheet engineer.
• Detailed organization and clear labeling of any changes to working versions of a project.

Written communication, like Skype chat and email also helps close the gap between the conceptual modeller in Rotterdam and the spreadsheet engineer in Delhi, nearly 1000 kilometers away. While both parties speak English, accents can make it difficult to communicate over the telephone. Typed correspondence eliminates that problem.

This podcast will be of particular interest to collaborating modellers, as well as outsourcing businesses, multi-branch offices, or anyone else collaborating on projects over great distances.

Join us for part two, where we will be discussing collaborative modelling from the perspective of the spreadsheet engineer.

About Yann:

Yann Pleindoux is a Consultant at RebelGroup as international Financial Adviser for infrastructure projects implementation, procurement and financing, design of tailor made PPP delivery solutions and financial engineering and modelling for public infrastructure PPP procurement. He has worked for both public and private sector clients in convergences projects between the public and private sectors. Yann works in Europe and on other international projects (Asia and Middle East).

He has broad experience as Adviser to Governmental Agencies, IFIs and National Ministries in the field of Infrastructure project structuring, finance and procurement under PPP schemes, including training and PPP enabling frameworks design and policies.

He is an International Port expert in Finance and Institutional Restructuring, and Port Management Industry Specialist for Rebel Ports.
Specialties
Financial modelling, Project Finance and PFI, Public Private Partnerships design and contracting for public infrastructure financing and delivery, DBFMO/BOT structuring and design, financing and funding of infrastructure projects, financing policies and international PPP transaction, acquisition and tendering, advanced spreadsheet engineering and modelling

If you would like to comment on any aspect of the podcast, please leave a comment below – we would welcome your observations and feedback.

You can listen the podcast using the player below, or you can subscribe to receive it automatically every time we publish it on iTunes.

We’ve been away for a few months now, and we probably owe you an explanation! The excuses are fairly legitimate: winter weather and Christmas of course, but we have been busy despite the holidays. Morten has been recruiting, interviewing, and hiring new modellers, expanding his team and doing the managerial decision-making that accompanies it. Kenny and his wife had a baby in December, welcoming a third child to the family (an always time consuming endeavor) and has been devoting time to finalizing a new online training platform, The Financial Modelling Academy. After many hours of developing course material, testing, and tightening all of the screws, it’s exciting to finally have the program in place. A project of that magnitude can be quite taxing on the schedule.

Rest assured, though, we’re back on the air with big plans for 2011

Upcoming podcasts include:

• (Part 1) An Interview with RebelGroup of Rotterdam, Holland about their experience of collaborative modelling, their focus on conceptual modelling, and the careful communication required to collaborate between two offices in different parts of the world.
• (Part 2) An interview on the other end of collaborative modelling with one our senior modellers about the receiving end of the process.
• Robert Thorpe discussing financial modelling in the healthcare sector.
• Adrian Gilmore, a long-haul pilot for British Airways, talking about how pilots are trained and the procedures they have in place to prevent mistakes. Pilots have to be incredibly accurate, and we can apply their systems to the accuracy needed for successful financial modelling.

Thanks for sticking with us despite our few months of absence!

You can listen the podcast using the player below, or you can subscribe to receive it automatically every time we publish it on iTunes.

In this programme Kenny and Morten are in conversation with Gavin Townshend, Head of Financial Modelling at Laing.

Gavin has had a long career in financial modelling, starting from his training as an accountant and continuing through modelling roles with KPMG to his current position at Laing.  He shares his views on:

• What is important to business users of financial models;
• What model builders need to do to engage with them;
• Why they take the “calculation engine” for granted;
• What to do when end they don’t have a clear sense of what they need from a model;
• Why the things that matter to model builders, tend not to matter to model users.

This podcast will be of particular interest to financial modellers who deal with end clients, either within their organisation or externally.

Some of the key lessons that Gavin mentions are:

• Engage with the end client and understand what they need;
• Anticipate what they are going to need from the model;
• Make it easy for end users to get what they need from the model.

You can listen the podcast using the player below, or you can subscribe to receive it automatically every time we publish it on iTunes.

In this programme we talk to Alasdair Black and Tim Purton of the City of Edinburgh Council’s Strategic Projects team. Alasdair and Tim’s team take lead finance role in key projects in the City such as the Zero Waste and 21st century homes projects.

In this podcast we discuss:

• How Edinburgh City Council have saved over £100,000 per year by standardising financial modelling;
• How adoption of the FAST standard improved the relationship and effectiveness of the Council’s relationship with its financial advisers, Ernst and Young;
• The challenges the team faced in adopting the FAST standard and how these were overcome.

This podcast will be of particular interest to organisations trying to improve the quality and productivity of their financial modelling team by adopting a standard approach.

Some of the key lessons that Alasdair and Tim mention are:

• Invest in high quality financial modelling training;
• Communicate with modellers to understand their objections about adopting a standardised approach;
• Demonstrate the benefits – one of the key successes of the standardisation project in the Council was their ability to own the financial model and run it ‘in real time’ in meetings – providing insight and answers straight away, something which would not previously have been possible.

If you would like to comment on any aspect of this programme, please leave a comment below – we would welcome your observations and feedback.

In the podcast Kenny also promised to put up a link to a recording of the webinar we did a few weeks ago with Stephen Few. The recording is available on Financial Mechanics TV.  You can also download the slides of Stephen’s presentation, entitled “Financial narrative: Telling stories with numbers.”

You can listen the podcast using the player below, or you can subscribe to receive it automatically every time we publish it on iTunes.

This podcast is the second of our two part series looking at the impact of the financial crisis on financial modelling in the infrastructure finance and PPP sector. In the first part, Hugo Teixiera of West LB gave his perspective on the financial crsis and discused the some of the impact on financial modelling. In this podcast, he  talks about:

• the difficultes he has in reading many of the financial models he sees;
• his frustrations at how much time he wastes when modellers do not present analysis clearly;
• how new structures, increased intervention from banks, investors and sponsors and the increased role of institutions such as the EIB and the EBRD are increasing the need for real fleixbility in financial models;
• why increased risk aversion is leading credit officers to require financial models to run more extreme scenarios, often causing the model to ‘break’;
• why complex models that only the modeller understands are no longer tenable and why now is the right time for a set of shared standards.

Hugo put together a useful presentation to accompany the podcast.

Download Hugo’s presentation here.

About Hugo

Hugo focuses on the analysis, structuring, approval, and execution of project, corporate, and acquisition financings for clients in the Infrastructure and Energy sectors globally.  Recent experiences include leading the WestLB credit team on the acquisition of Gatwick Airport and the financings of the M25, FSTA as well as the refinancing of Henderson Infrastructure. Hugo is responsible for the WestLB’s Project Finance Cash Flow Modelling Centre of Competence and is also a cash flow modelling trainer.

Hugo joined WestLB from London Underground where he was Senior Manager on the Commercial Finance, Advisor and Risk team where he was involved with the restructuring of Metronet.  Prior to this, Hugo worked with the Infrastructure team at PwC in London, in Corporate Finance at BPI and in Wholesale Banking at BES. Hugo is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) and a Chartered Accountant (CTOC) and holds an Economics degree from Oporto University and an MBA from Warwick Business School.

If you would like to comment on any aspect of the podcast, please leave a comment below – we would welcome your observations and feedback.

You can listen the podcast using the player below, or you can subscribe to receive it automatically every time we publish it on iTunes.

In the first of a two part programme, Hugo Teixeira of West LB gives the background to the financial crisis and how this has affected the modelling of infrastructure and PPP projects. In this podcast we discuss:

• How banks are segmenting the PPP / infrastructure market
• What the impact of the financial crisis has been on lending structures in the sector
• Why are projects taking longer to close and being cancelled more often
• How bank’s credit risk departments have responded
• How the crisis has changed the way banks look at financial modelling
• How financial models should be built to best deal with these new realities
• Why professionally built template models often start out well at the start of a project, but gradually degrade over time

Hugo put together a useful presentation to accompany the podcast.

Download Hugo’s presentation here.

About Hugo

Hugo focuses on the analysis, structuring, approval, and execution of project, corporate, and acquisition financings for clients in the Infrastructure and Energy sectors globally.  Recent experiences include leading the WestLB credit team on the acquisition of Gatwick Airport and the financings of the M25, FSTA as well as the refinancing of Henderson Infrastructure. Hugo is responsible for the WestLB’s Project Finance Cash Flow Modelling Centre of Competence and is also a cash flow modelling trainer.

Hugo joined WestLB from London Underground where he was Senior Manager on the Commercial Finance, Advisor and Risk team where he was involved with the restructuring of Metronet.  Prior to this, Hugo worked with the Infrastructure team at PwC in London, in Corporate Finance at BPI and in Wholesale Banking at BES. Hugo is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) and a Chartered Accountant (CTOC) and holds an Economics degree from Oporto University and an MBA from Warwick Business School.

If you would like to comment on any aspect of the podcast, please leave a comment below – we would welcome your observations and feedback.

You can listen the podcast using the player below, or you can subscribe to receive it automatically every time we publish it on iTunes.

In this podcast we talked to Ray Panko about his research into error rates in spreadsheets.  Ray is a well known figure in the financial modelling world as he has spent a long time researching errors in financial modelling (and indeed has co-developed a taxonomy of spreadsheet errors). In this podcast Ray discusses spreadsheets in specific, but also the broader area of human error research.

Ray has the good fortune to be based out of the University of Hawaii. When we spoke to him Kenny was in London and Morten was in Delhi which meant that between the 3 of us we nearly covered all the world’s time zones (although Kenny got the raw deal as our call was at 7am London time!).

Ray will be speaking on identifying errors in spreadsheets at the upcoming EUSPRIG conference in London. If you’d like to find out more about the conference, you can view or download the programme, or register.

Also, if you haven’t yet signed up for the Stephen Few webinar on July 13th, you can register here.

If you would like to comment on any aspect of the podcast, please leave a comment below – we would welcome your observations and feedback.

You can listen the podcast using the player below, or you can subscribe to receive it automatically every time we publish it on iTunes.

In an exception to our normal monthly podcast schedule, we present a short 10 minute preview of this year’s EUSPRIG conference which takes place in London on July 15th and 16th.

In this podcast we talk to Dr Simon Thorne, who in addition to being one of the organisers of the conference,  is a Lecturer in information systems and computing at the University of Wales Institute Cardiff. Simon completed his PhD in 2008 on the subject of alternative modelling techniques for the reduction of error in decision support spreadsheets.

If you’d like to find out more about the conference, you can view or download the programme, or register.

If you would like to comment on any aspect of the podcast, please leave a comment below – we would welcome your observations and feedback.

You can listen the podcast using the player below, or you can subscribe to receive it automatically every time we publish it on iTunes.

In this programme we talk to Jerome Brice, Partner at Accountancy firm Mazars about the model audit business. In the podcast Jerome discusses:

• The approach Mazars take to model audit, comparing their ‘model replication’ methodology with what Jerome calls the ‘tick and bash’ approach of some other audit firms;
• What factors influence how long a model audit takes (and therefore how much it costs);
• The impact of the financial crisis .

If you would like to comment on any aspect of this programme, please leave a comment below – we would welcome your observations and feedback.

You can listen the podcast using the player below, or you can subscribe to receive it automatically every time we publish it on iTunes.