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It is widely documented that the absence of a structured approach to spreadsheet engineering is a key factor in the high level of spreadsheet errors. In this paper we propose and investigate the application of Test-Driven Development to the…
Human error research on overconfidence supports the benefits of early visibility of defects and disciplined development. If risk to the enterprise is to be reduced, individuals need to become aware of the reality of the quality of their…
This paper explores the impacts of spreadsheets on business operations in a water utility parastatal in Malawi, Sub-Saharan Africa. The organisation is a typical example of a semi-government body operating in a technologically…
"Look before you leap"; "a stitch in time saves nine"; "more haste, less speed". Many proverbs declare the wisdom of planning before doing. We suggest how to apply this to Excel, by explaining and specifying spreadsheets before coding them,…
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…
Errors in spreadsheet applications and models are alarmingly common (some authorities, with justification cite spreadsheets containing errors as the norm rather than the exception). Faced with this body of evidence, the auditor can be faced…
The use of spreadsheets in industry is widespread. Companies base decisions on information coming from spreadsheets. Unfortunately, spreadsheets are error-prone and this increases the risk that companies base their decisions on inaccurate…
Contemporary spreadsheets are plagued by a profusion of errors, auditing difficulties, lack of uniform development methodologies, and barriers to easy comprehension of the underlying business models they represent. This paper presents a…
This paper presents the arguments and supporting business metrics for Enterprise Spreadsheet Management to be seen as a necessary good. These arguments are divided into a summary of external business drivers that make it necessary and the…
The risks of spreadsheet use do not just come from the misuse of formulae. As such, training needs to go beyond this technical aspect of spreadsheet use and look at the spreadsheet in its full business context. While standard training is by…
The Open Source Software movement has been growing exponentially for a number of years with no signs of slowing. Driving this growth is the widespread availability of libraries and frameworks that provide many functionalities. Developers…
The usual aim of spreadsheet audit is to verify correctness. There are two problems with this: first, it is often difficult to tell whether the spreadsheets in question are correct, and second, even if they are, they may still give the…
Spreadsheet audit and review procedures are an essential part of almost all City of London financial transactions. Structured processes are used to discover errors in large financial spreadsheets underpinning major transactions of all…
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…
Previous spreadsheet inspection experiments have had human subjects look for seeded errors in spreadsheets. In this study, subjects attempted to find errors in human-developed spreadsheets to avoid the potential artifacts created by error…
Spreadsheets offer a supremely successful and intuitive means of processing and exchanging numerical content. Its intuitive ad-hoc nature makes it hugely popular for use in diverse areas including business and engineering, yet these very…
This management summary provides an outline of a commercial spreadsheet review process. The aim of this process is to ensure remedial or enhancement work can safely be undertaken on a spreadsheet with a commercially acceptable level of risk…
In this paper, we report some on-going focused research, but are further keen to set it in the context of a proposed bigger picture, as follows. There is a certain depressing pattern about the attitude of industry to spreadsheet error…
One of the most important assets of any company is being able to easily access information on itself and on its business. In this line, it has been observed that this important information is often stored in one of the millions of…
The power of mobile devices has increased dramatically in the last few years. These devices are becoming more sophisticated allowing users to accomplish a wide variety of tasks while on the move. The increasingly mobile nature of business…