Ask any “spreadsheet power user” about problems they’ve found (or produced), and you’ll hear fun/fascinating/horrifying stories.
This isn’t just about Apache OpenCalc, Google Sheets, Microsoft Excel, or Oracle Hyperion or the countless other products, services, and variations. This goes back to VisiCalc (1979), Adam Osborne’s VP-Planner (1982), and Microsoft Multiplan (1982). And there are even earlier examples.
Spreadsheets (and related computing metaphors) directly connected “green eyeshade” analysis of accounting and finance to compute power convenience. Individuals working on spreadsheets frequently are diligent, detail driven, and very focused. Unfortunately spreadsheet errors, like any other ‘coding’ process, happen on the simple or sophisticated. A web search for “expensive spreadsheet error” will produce more than you want to read.
Ease-of-use, timeliness of data, and “it’s okay it’s in a spreadsheet” aren’t going away. So, enterprises aren’t going to stop these problems. Here are some actions to reduce problems:
1) Provide people resource to “help out” high-risk/high-impact spreadsheet users. Simply, get rid of the fear and costs for these users to get help.
2) Invest in full-blown applications solutions with version controls, audit trails, and access management.
3) Seek out critical spreadsheets and add resources to ‘proof/audit’ and ‘improve’ their data and uses.
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