In computing, goal seeking is the ability to calculate backward to obtain an input that would result in a given output. This can also be called what-if analysis or back-solving. It can either be attempted through trial and improvement or more logical means. Basic goal seeking functionality is built into most modern spreadsheet packages such as Microsoft Excel.
According to O'Brien and Marakas, optimization analysis is a more complex extension of goal-seeking analysis. Instead of setting a specific target value for a variable, the goal is to find the optimum value for one or more target variables, given certain constraints. Then one or more other variables are changed repeatedly, subject to the specified constraints, until you discover the best values for the target variables.
Read more about Goal Seeking: Examples
Famous quotes containing the words goal and/or seeking:
“Experts are saying that President Bush’s goal now is to politically humiliate Saddam Hussein. Why don’t we just make him the next Democratic presidential nominee?”
—Jay Leno (b. 1950)
“There is something I have forgotten, some precious thing.
I shall be seeking ornaments of ivory,
I shall be dying for a jungle fruit.
You do not hear, Bethesda.
O still green water in a stagnant pool!”
—Arna Bontemps (1902–1973)