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There’s a lot of conditions that come into play. If I’m actively in the meeting and the number is obviously wrong and I have no analyst support (usually at the

There’s a lot of conditions that come into play. If I’m actively in the meeting and the number is obviously wrong and I have no analyst support (usually at the point). I’ll just table it and apologize and send a follow up to the attendees after the meeting and summarize whether I feel like the correct calculation impacts our decisions/discussion. These things do have a reputational cost so it’s my job to see that myself and my team and putting out error free stuff and having it proofread and such is usually the best we can do. There are many times when the math is in fact correct and the numbers are just implausible. That’s usually the meat of the meeting and something to dig deeper on. Hopefully we noticed it, double checked it, and it’s one of my talking points to address in the meeting. Either I want to point it out and explain why or point it out and ask why depending on who I’m talking to.

kragen 5y ago
Very interesting! I appreciate you sharing your experience. I wonder if the other teams who present in the same meetings are doing the same kind of careful behind-the-scenes double-checking, motivated by the concern that someone might find an error in their numbers during the meeting. That conscientiousness seems like it might be beneficial to you, even though it's an unwanted cost when it's your team that's saddled with it?
- conductr 5y ago
  Haha ya. Company culture plays a part. Some companies are engaged in neurotic analysis paralysis and it would extended to all other presenters. Often, finance gets to own the deck/presentation doc, which means were ultimately responsible for everyone’s content. And even when we’re not, other department heads often ask us “for help” on a presentation (even for meetings finance does not even attend) which typically means they want someone to build it for them and be responsible for the accuracy within. This is common in a “shared services” world where there is no analyst resources for the functional departments, they lean on finance.

kragen 5y ago

Very interesting! I appreciate you sharing your experience. I wonder if the other teams who present in the same meetings are doing the same kind of careful behind-the-scenes double-checking, motivated by the concern that someone might find an error in their numbers during the meeting. That conscientiousness seems like it might be beneficial to you, even though it's an unwanted cost when it's your team that's saddled with it?

conductr 5y ago
Haha ya. Company culture plays a part. Some companies are engaged in neurotic analysis paralysis and it would extended to all other presenters. Often, finance gets to own the deck/presentation doc, which means were ultimately responsible for everyone’s content. And even when we’re not, other department heads often ask us “for help” on a presentation (even for meetings finance does not even attend) which typically means they want someone to build it for them and be responsible for the accuracy within. This is common in a “shared services” world where there is no analyst resources for the functional departments, they lean on finance.