Related papers: EuSpRIG 2006 Commercial Spreadsheet Review

A common application of spreadsheets is the development of models that deliver projections of the future financial statements of companies established to pursue ventures that are subject to project financing. A survey of 11 such…

Spreadsheet engineering methodologies are diverse and sometimes contradictory. It is difficult for spreadsheet developers to identify a spreadsheet engineering methodology that is appropriate for their class of spreadsheet, with its unique…

We consider the challenge of creating guidelines to evaluate the quality of a spreadsheet model. We suggest four principles. First, state the domain-the spreadsheets to which the guidelines apply. Second, distinguish between the process by…

Spreadsheets are powerful tools which play a business-critical role in many organizations. However, many bad decisions taken due to faulty spreadsheets show that these tools need serious quality assurance. Furthermore, while collaboration…

Despite strong evidence of widespread errors, spreadsheet developers rarely subject their spreadsheets to post-development testing to reduce errors. This may be because spreadsheet developers are overconfident in the accuracy of their…

Spreadsheets are ubiquitous in business with the financial sector particularly heavily reliant on the technology. It is known that the level of spreadsheet error can be high and that it is often necessary to review spreadsheets based on a…

This management paper looks at the real world issues faced by practitioners managing spreadsheets through the production phase of their life cycle. It draws on the commercial experience of several developers working with large corporations,…

A huge amount of data is everyday managed in large organizations in many critical business sectors with the support of spreadsheet applications. The process of elaborating spreadsheet data is often performed in a distributed, collaborative…

This paper presents the results of an empirical evaluation of the quality of a structured methodology for the development of spreadsheet models, proposed in numerous previous papers by Rajalingham K, Knight B and Chadwick D et al. This…

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 has finally forced corporations to examine the validity of their spreadsheets. They are beginning to understand the spreadsheet error literature, including what it tells them about the need for comprehensive…

This paper discusses spreadsheets documentation and new means to achieve this end by using Excel's built-in "Comment" function. By structuring comments, they can be used as an essential tool to fully explain spreadsheet. This will greatly…

Previous research on spreadsheet risks has predominantly focussed on errors inadvertently introduced by spreadsheet writers i.e. it focussed on the end-user aspects of spreadsheet development. When analyzing a faulty spreadsheet, one might…

Fifteen years of research studies have concluded unanimously that spreadsheet errors are both common and non-trivial. Now we must seek ways to reduce spreadsheet errors. Several approaches have been suggested, some of which are promising…

The first fully-documented study into the quantitative impact of errors in operational spreadsheets identified an interesting anomaly. One of the five participating organisations involved in the study contributed a set of five spreadsheets…

The paper presents two complementary strategies for identifying errors in spreadsheet programs. The strategies presented are grounded on the assumption that spreadsheets are software, albeit of a different nature than conventional…

There is an overlooked iceberg of problems in end user computing. Spreadsheets are developed by people who are very skilled in their main job function, be it finance, procurement, or production planning, but often have had no formal…

The European Spreadsheet Risks Interest Group (EuSpRIG) has maintained a website almost since its inception in 2000. We present here longitudinal and cross-sectional statistics from the website log in order to shed some light upon end-user…

Spreadsheets are used extensively in industry, often for business critical purposes. In previous work we have analyzed the information needs of spreadsheet professionals and addressed their need for support with the transition of a…

This paper describes a framework for a systematic classification of spreadsheet errors. This classification or taxonomy of errors is aimed at facilitating analysis and comprehension of the different types of spreadsheet errors. The taxonomy…

Spreadsheets are widely used in industry, because they are flexible and easy to use. Sometimes they are even used for business-critical applications. It is however difficult for spreadsheet users to correctly assess the quality of…