Excel Workbook For Dummies, 2nd Edition

Chapter 19

Performing What-If Analysis

IN THIS CHAPTER

Doing what-if analysis with one- and two-variable data tables

Creating and playing with different scenarios

Performing goal seeking

Creating models with the Solver add-in

What-if analysis is a way of interrogating your worksheet data by playing around with different formula inputs to see how the formula result changes. This type of analysis is really a way of asking one or more “What if…?” questions: What if interest rates rise by one percentage point? What if they fall by two percentage points? What if I increase the down payment by $10,000? What if I increase it by $50,000?

Using what-if analysis in the worksheet to examine possible outcomes based on different inputs is one of Excel’s fortes. Sure, you can build a model and plug in different formula input values by hand, but Excel offers a few data analysis tools that can make it much easier to interrogate your models. These tools include one- and two-variable data tables, Goal Seek, and Scenario Manager. And if these are not enough, it also includes the Solver add-in utility, ...