Spreadsheets in Finance and Forecasting Project Session 3a The Next Step: Planning Your Visits

Objectives The purpose of this short session is to ensure that, by the end of this week: you have identified a context, and made contact you are aware of the project timetable over the next few weeks you are in a position to plan out what you intend to do during your visits you have submitted a completed Project Registration Form.

Project Planning Over the next several weeks, you will be making visits to your context and collecting data. Your plans should be recorded on the Project Registration Document This document asks you to specify what you will be doing as you move into the “data collection” phase of your project.

The Project Registration Form This is an initial declaration of your intent to use a particular context. There is the possibility of change, but is you do, you must inform your tutor and re-register. The form asks for: Description of Context Methods of Investigation Timetable for Action

Timetable For Action Week 3: Initial visits Project Registration Weeks 4 & 5: Further Visit(s) Collection of Information Week 5, 6 or 7: Formative Tutorial

Week 3: Making Contact If you have not done so already, you must identify a context to use for your study. Make contact, and agree a schedule of visits

Week 3: Forward Planning After your initial visit you should plan out carefully how many further visits you intend to make, and what you will do in these visits

Week 4 and beyond: Further Visits Your “fact-finding” visits should start in week 4, and may go on into weeks 5, 6 and beyond. Plan for about 4 of these visits, about an hour or so on each occasion.

Weeks 5, 6 or 7: The Tutorial At the moment you may not have a clear idea about what you will be doing in your project, or how to proceed. In in the near future you will be asked to prepare for an individual tutorial on the project. The purpose of this will be to help you focus your investigations, and think through various possibilities. In advance of this project, you will submit a “pre-tutorial preparation” sheet.

Preparing for the Tutorial In the “pre-tutorial preparation” you will be asked to: describe your context outline the contacts made state the data sources you have discovered so far

During the Tutorial During the tutorial you will be asked to: discuss what you have done so far bring samples of evidence describe your attempts at analysing the data and the data flows.

The Follow-Up At the end of the tutorial you will discuss what you might concentrate on in the actual project, and “what happens next?” By the end of the session you should have a clear idea about which aspects of your work to focus on, and how the pieces might fit together.

In Summary You should now create initial plans, and record the details on the Project Registration Form This form must be submitted to your tutor by the end of next week. In your context, you should begin collecting information and prepare for the Formative Tutorial.