Question

1. Define what a knowledge worker is and discuss the significance of the knowledge
worker in today’s business world.
2. Define and differentiate between the terms information and data.
3. What is the relationship between problem solving and decision making?
4. What role can Excel play in decision making?
5. Describe a time you have performed a what-if analysis.
6. Describe a situation in which having access to large amounts of information had a
negative impact on your decision making.
7. Describe a situation in which having access to large amounts of information had a
positive impact on your decision making.
8. Describe the general model of problem solving presented in the text. What are the
three main phases and the different analysis steps involved?
9. Give an example of each of the following: a quantitative basis for making a decision
and a qualitative basis for making a decision.
10. What should you consider before implementing or building a spreadsheet model?
11. Describe how to open a file in Excel. What is the difference between opening a file
and creating a new file in Excel?
12. Describe how you save a file with a new filename in Excel.
13. What are some of the file types that Excel supports?

Answer 1

Answer to Q.No. 1

Knowledge worker is a worker who is engaged in analysing the information or using his theoretical knowledge practically to make the situation feasible.

Significance of a knowledge worker in todays world:

1. They use factual knowledge to analyse situation thus they are good decision makers.

2. They possesss good communication skills.

3. They are highly motivated employees as their growth depends upon updated knowledge. To update their knowledge continuously they keep themselves highly motivated.

4. They exchange their knowledge to develop new products.

Answer to Q. No. 2

Data is a collection of facts and analysis but without any specific meaning whereas Information is the collection and representation of data with a logical meaning.

Answer to Q. No. 3

Problem solving is a process of getting to a solution for a wrong situation. Whereas, Decision making is a process of selecting one best alternative for a particular situation.

Answer to Q. No. 4

Excel is a tool which can help its user to sort data easily as per the convinence of the user. Sorting of data can minimise the workload of the user and he can easily compare and analyse the different alternatives to a situation. Thus, decision making is made very convinienet for the user.