Documentation and clarity win careers.

Scott Powell is one of the founders of CF Institute and instructor and so one of the first key takeaways he kind of shared was start with the end in mind. Don't jump into building models immediately. Think about stakeholders, deliverables and outputs. First draw out your model structure on paper before opening Excel. Then we talk about one of my favorite subjects. I often say simple is hard, complex is easy. But he used the term simplify over complication often doesn't impact decision making. So don't do it. You can make a model look more precise by adding hundreds, rows and columns, but if it doesn't affect the decision, why do it? So focus on what's needed for the decision. He talked about the importance of documenting everything from color, code, comments, clear documentation throughout. And then he said which is a theme we talked about under Kenny Soft skills set you apart. Technical skills are the baseline, but communication, storytelling and stakeholder management are what differentiate top performers in finance.