Michael McKinley
Data. Made actionable.
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Michael McKinley is the founder of McKinley Consulting. Michael has managed projects and workstreams in consulting for the last six years, in areas including data analytics, change management, operations excellence, and supply chain transformation.
Mr. McKinley is currently leading a BI team at AllianceBernstein, a mid-level global investment bank. The reports his team generates are viewed by senior leadership, including the CEO, and are reported to Wall Street.
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Modern Power BI Training: From Data Rookie to Dashboard-Ready In One Day
Learn Power BI the modern way—faster, smarter, and ready for real-world work.
This full-day, hands-on workshop is built for busy professionals who want to do more with data—without getting buried in jargon or lost in a sea of online tutorials. Whether you’re a business analyst, Excel power user, operations lead, or data-curious professional, you’ll walk away with the skills and confidence to build insightful, interactive dashboards using Microsoft Power BI.
This isn’t your old-school training session.
You’ll learn a streamlined, modern approach to Power BI that focuses on the most important concepts—and skips the outdated ones. Along the way, we’ll incorporate AI-powered tools and tips to accelerate your workflow, improve report quality, and reduce friction in your development process.
By the end of the day, you’ll have built a complete Power BI solution from scratch—and know exactly how to apply what you’ve learned when you get back to work.
Key Takeaways
You’ll learn how to:
• Build a complete Power BI report from scratch
• Ingest and transform raw data using Power Query
• Apply key data modeling concepts for accurate insights
• Write simple but powerful DAX measures
• Use AI tools to reduce friction and speed up development
• Design engaging, interactive visuals
• Publish, share, and operationalize your reports in the Power BI Service
• Confidently use Power BI back on the job—immediately
Workshop Schedule (This can be adjusted to fit the timeline of the facility, for example.)
• 8:00–8:30 – Introduction & Setup
• 8:30–8:50 – Where to Get Started: Beginning at the Finish Line
• 8:50–9:30 – Data Ingestion & Transformation, Part 1
• 9:30–9:45 – Morning Break
• 9:45–10:30 – Data Ingestion & Transformation, Part 2
• 10:30–11:15 – Data Modeling
• 11:15–12:00 – Creating DAX Measures and Visuals, Part 1
• 12:00–12:30 – Lunch Break (Provided)
• 12:30–2:15 – Creating DAX Measures and Visuals, Part 2
• 2:15–2:30 – Afternoon Break
• 2:30–3:30 – Publishing, Sharing, and Operationalizing in Power BI Service
• 3:30–4:00 – Wrap-Up and Q&A
This is the Power BI class we wish we had when we started.
Bring your laptop and your curiosity—leave with a working dashboard, modern skills, and a faster path to insight.
AI in Action: Supercharging Power BI Development and Troubleshooting
Unlock the power of AI to streamline your Power BI workflows, from design to delivery. This session explores how tools like ChatGPT, Copilot, and other AI assistants can support every stage of Power BI development: designing reports, optimizing data models, troubleshooting issues, and even analyzing insights.
Discover how AI tools like ChatGPT, Copilot, and others can:
• Simplify DAX creation and debugging, offering tailored solutions for complex calculations.
• Clarify data modeling challenges, including filter context and relationship issues, to deliver accurate insights.
• Provide actionable guidance for creating effective visuals that meet specific user needs.
• Summarize complex reports and datasets, empowering data consumers to generate insights independently.
• Streamline workflows for expert developers, reducing repetitive tasks and accelerating project delivery.
This session is designed to demonstrate how AI can elevate Power BI development at all skill levels, helping you work smarter and faster while delivering impactful results.
How To Get Started on a Brand New Report
Starting a new reporting project can be daunting, but having a clear, structured approach can make all the difference. This session will introduce a practical framework for tackling reporting projects effectively, starting with a deep understanding of the end goal and the needs of the report consumer.
You’ll learn how to plan and design reports collaboratively, identify the right data, and build solutions that address real-world challenges. We’ll also explore best practices for documenting requirements, maintaining open communication with stakeholders, and ensuring feedback-driven iteration.
In just 20 minutes, you’ll walk away with actionable insights to guide your next reporting project from concept to delivery.
Application Lifecycle Management for Business Intelligence: ALM for BI
Managing Power BI development in a team setting can be challenging—avoiding code conflicts, ensuring seamless collaboration, and deploying updates effectively require a strategic approach. In this session, I’ll share how principles from application development can be applied to Power BI, introducing state-of-the-art practices for managing the BI development lifecycle.
You’ll learn how to:
• Enable multiple developers to work on the same dataset simultaneously.
• Store your Power BI models as code in your source repository.
• Use Git for version control, change tracking, and collaboration.
• Integrate with ticketing systems and implement deployment pipelines for continuous integration and delivery.
Whether you manage a team of BI developers or work on one, this session will equip you with tools and strategies to tackle some of the most pressing challenges in BI development and scale your Power BI projects effectively.
Data Modeling for Business Intelligence
As you grow in your business intelligence journey, transitioning from single-table datasets to complex data models often leads to unexpected challenges—like inaccurate results. These challenges typically stem from not fully understanding how BI tools, like Power BI, operate under the hood.
This session offers an approachable introduction to data modeling, focusing on the foundational concepts you need to design effective and efficient models. We’ll explore how Power BI’s engine works, how it interprets filter contexts, and why these mechanics influence our data modeling decisions. Designed for beginners, this session simplifies technical concepts, helping you take the next step on your BI learning curve with confidence. Whether you’re troubleshooting existing reports or creating new ones, you’ll leave with practical skills to build better models and solve problems effectively.
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