|| 20-365 short stories of 30 seconds

21. Data blueprint

• Financial data are actuals and forecasts

• MAPS is a management accounting system with the primary objective of being the system of record for external reporting; CAP is an internal and analytical system
• Let's talk about MAPS. MAPS has actuals and forecasts.  Originally CFAR, the Hyperion Essbase reporting system existed for as long as when I joined the company
• Where do actuals come from?  1) every product line has its own processor with account level transaction information from tsys, impacs / systematics, profile, ALS, ACBS etc., and data links extracts and aggregates the account level information to feed into MAPS 2) accounting systems feeds maps with real cash operating accounts into our general ledgers
• Where do the forecasts come from?  1) financial analysts forecasts into Direx and Forecast and data links feeds into MAPS 2) MAPS itself has calculations on the derived items, such as capital, top of house items
• MAPS will end its support in 2020, Oracle will only offer a brand new system with a completely different look and feel.  MAPS is mainframe, not cloud compatible.  It requires 26K+ lines of codes to implement a change of its interaction with the rest of the cloud-ready system or table.  It is time to say farewell, and it's no way of going back
• MAPS will be replaced with OneStream

22. The future of the finance skills

• The global finance data lakes, the basic needs of our Global Finance work

• Even before getting the news that MAPS is gone, there were overwhelming voices from the analyst community that the Hyperion Essbase data template is not supporting the more advanced visual tools of such as Tableau, and we want the true source of the MAPS data (you can think of it as a financial actuals data lake).  Just recently Lessbase has been enabled using a backdoor, so that analyst could use the flat files directly, eliminating the excel formatting efforts, and directly feed into the Tableau expense reporting
• This skill of data queries is becoming more important, as the choice of the front end has really proliferated, tableau designs, web-based forms, python models and etc.  Each may have a unique data feed requirement, btw they are usually very flat file looking.  The understanding of the underlying data and data extraction skills are critical as we design the FP&A products for our business customers
• Now let's talk about some of the more advanced work of an LoB finance analyst

• CAP is an internal and analytical system, is something we want to learn today.  It's another data lake concept which has account level financial information, first started in both card and auto, as finance was looking for our own insights of vintage quality and segment quality of account performances, we debated heavily for the lack of an eighth dimension, the channel from a long time ago, an decided that the channel split will be addressed by the DID set-ups.  It's a data link without the Hyperion Essbase front end, so both business analysts and financial analysts use SQL and now snowflakes to retrieve somewhat raw data out of it
• Pennywise should be coming online very soon.  This is an internal and analytical system sponsored by the bank business
• The powerday is pointing to the creation of the global assumptions lake with much more contents, system storage, version control, and more frequent update
• Finally, peer pressure may be building up.  I want to share the experience that I recently had at the Andrew director + innovation update.  The question is, do you think the managers need to learn the data skills, pulling data from the source system?  Shane/Steve had all gotten training on python

23. Getting into the 2019 ACC class

• Advanced credit college presents the leadership of structured thinking and structured communication.  

• 1) deposit pricing and servicing decisions 2) education of decision sciences in the operations area 2) forecast model integrity
• It is set in a heavy credit environment as most of the consumer credit products do risk-based pricing.  I would like to think that deposit pricing could use a similar line of self-interrogation and integrity only that the credit losses are expanding into all costs which also include operating resource costs (branches) and operating losses

• I recently learned Erlang C model of the call center model that gives the insight that changing service level is not strong leverage in cost savings but has outsized risks with the only a small amount of staffing decreases

• We recently had a forecast power day.  The various forecast approach, regression testing, has the opportunity of instituting consistency and standards

• Long term career - 1) I do feel committed to the bank because of the unfinished businesses, the desire to create a legacy of a new forecast system and a new forecast community for the above reasons.  2) I am less interested in the detailed marketing campaigns that modify the creatives, the plastics.  What's best of the use of my experiences, the knowledge of many consumer financial product plus the enhanced training of structured thinking, would be a strategic development for a certain deal, for a certain customer segment or for a policy development, which involves credit and/or value creation

24. Founders and Funders

• Founders - 
• many are clueless and talk without much of a purpose
• several wanting to improve on digital product management skills, marketing skills, design and UX skill
• none have asked for financial planning or business planning advice
• several mentioned that they started from consulting and strategy background, "I do business development"
• 3 of the 4 presenters could do better with explaining business models, funding roadmaps and etc.  They all come from consulting pipeline, then developing software for sale.  Team composition is 1 BD, 1 CTO, 10-15 data/engineers
• Funders - 
• they smell money, corporate talk, sharp questioning
• seem to be more eager with talking to the rest of the investor community, incl. institutional sponsors and funders
• Politics matter a lot - 
• some of the venture presentations just threw big names of prior directors from NSA, NIH ... make you feel it's so hard to be an entrepreneur in DC, you need political influence
• several related to a social cause in storytelling, pay equality, national security
• Networking -
• founders and founders, investors and investors, 10-word speed dating style networking

25. Living in DC

• Diverse demographics - lots of resources of food, culture, scenes, lifestyles ... such as farmers marketing, games, concerts, embarking deeper thinking of life existence and co-existence

• Political influence - it's invigorating to see the flourishing innovations as people take on the century-old social challenges, equal voting rights, and political involvements, pay equity, national security ...

26. "The chosen one ..."

These days the chosen one turns off people for not being inclusive, potentially bias driven decision making.  The same may be going on with choosing the computing or reporting tools at the workplace.  Society is full of options for human beings who should master their own destinies.  

In the field of the coding, for instance, there are literally masses of other languages that we can use for data science, but, in comparison with R and Python, they are slightly not so well-suited and general-purposeful.  1) ease of learning the syntax 2) a growing community and open source, the richness of the library 3) applications of both data cleaning, modeling, searching, mathematical functioning, web application, compatibility, etc.

We should understand the choice of a language remains just a tool in a programmer’s hands. Naturally, it is substantial to manipulate it confidently to generate a superior solution. But, in the first place should represent the developer’s skill.  

27. Advisory

What is advisory, having or consisting in the power to make recommendations but not to take action enforcing them.

• is personally and professionally interested in being an advisor, more than "check the box"
• genuinely listens constructively, attempting to hear all aspects of the business clients expressed problems
• attempts to understand the concerns from a client's point of view, incl. the business drivers, challenges
• knows finance principles and best practice in sufficient details to provide clients with accurate, usable information
• refers clients to other sources of information and assistance when necessary
• views long-range planning as well as immediate problem-solving as an essential part of effective advising
• continually attempts to improve both the style and substance of his/her advising role

Skills are, trustworthiness, knowledge, communication skills, compassion and optimism.

Communication Skills

To effectively communicate their advice, advisers must have strong communication skills. These communication skills should include the ability to both listen and speak. If the individual is not skilled at listening, she won't be able to obtain the information she requires to give advice to the advisee. Similarly, if the individual is not skilled in speaking, she won't be able to verbally communicate her advice with much success.

Compassion

Sometimes the topics on which advisers are giving advice are emotional in nature. When an adviser is going to speak about topics that are tied to human emotions, it is beneficial if he is compassionate. If he lacks compassion, he may not be able to effectively present the emotionally charged advice in a manner that the advisee can appreciate.

Optimism

While not entirely requisite, optimism is a useful trait for an adviser to possess. If an adviser is optimistic, she can more likely make the individuals she is advising feel good during the advice-giving process. This ability to put individuals at ease and see the bright side in potentially difficult situations can make the adviser enjoyable to be around and potentially more desirable to those seeking advice.