What is your spreadsheet called? by Gordon Petrie - November 2016

Many people adopt pet names for things they love and are familiar with. It may be the affectionate name you call your loved one or it may be a possession such as a car.

Even at this early stage I expect there are questions about how the headline image, the title and the first paragraph can possibly have any relationship. Let me outline my experiences and set out some questions about the impact and what can be done.

In my contact with many organisations over the years where the subject of how people manage their day to day responsibilities where that involves the use and management of data for the business has arisen there have been some very consistent facts that come to light.

The experience goes across all shapes and sizes of business from small start-ups to large brand leading enterprises. At a human level, most people I come into contact with are diligent and professional with the intent to carry out their duties to the best of their abilities to meet the goals set for them in the business and their personal pride in getting the job done.

That is where the divergence can be first seen. The company sets out the strategy and makes decisions on what systems and processes are put in place to deliver the success and meet plans.

The complexity of business today means there is very little that can be achieved without the support of technology in various forms. In a previous article I outlined the typical evolution of IT in small, growing businesses (Searching for the IT silver bullet http://advantagebusinessltd.com/abp-blog/ ).

The key argument that was expanded on in that article was the challenge for particularly non IT based businesses to plan and structure their IT to give the right solution that includes flexibility and meets the needs of processes, people and how they both link to technology.

When faced with deciding how to address problems in IT where it is not supporting the business as well as desired it is not uncommon to focus on the specific issue in hand and to fix that.

That may mean replacing or initiating the selection and implementation of a solution to resolve the pressing problem. If that means the selection of an IT solution and there is no consultation with those who carry out the tasks currently then the outcome has already been impacted as the chances of meeting the needs that suit all is lowered.

The key factor that is missed by not including all users in the decision is the assessment of how any processes are currently managed and what is useable by all individuals. Taking into consideration the level of training required and the level of skills that exist will have a real bearing on what the outcomes actually looks like.

At this point you may well be thinking that it seems like a small point which can’t have any impact on the outcome.

If the current actual practices and how the individuals achieve their day to day functions are ignored that is where we get to the reason for the heading of this article.

My experience shows that when IT solutions do NOT take into account the users the outcomes are many informal practices and holding of data which invariably will be in a spreadsheet. Those spreadsheets (it is unlikely that only one will be in use) will be how individuals achieve their targets and unless it has been a conscious decision there will be

It has become appallingly

obvious that our technology

has exceeded our humanity.

– Albert Einstein (Scientist)

no controls over the data being held and therefore the accuracy. That can have a significant impact on the outcome which is derived from the spreadsheet and at the same time how much time is consumed checking and rechecking data to try and make it accurate.

The spreadsheet was designed as a productivity tool and is really valuable for manipulating data for many reasons. However, it was NEVER designed to manage complex data where multiple users need access and an audit trail of changes are required.

Despite that I have seen a wide variety of sometimes complex spreadsheets being used and with some startling challenges they introduce.

The title of the article was about what you might call your spreadsheet and I’m sure the initial thought would be that one spreadsheet doesn’t warrant that level of intimacy.

If spreadsheets were only used as they were designed which is to take data from a known and controlled source and use the spreadsheet to achieve a specific task, then things would stay pretty well under control.

However, from my own personal experience of individuals and teams in all sizes of companies it rarely stops at one spreadsheet. In fact, what often happens is one person builds a spreadsheet to meet a need and then someone else wants a copy as it is close to what they want so the copies start at that point.

It is worth considering the business impact of that simple act of copying a spreadsheet. Once a copy is made you CANNOT then merge them back together as one set of changes will be overwritten. So what that actually means is you now have 2 distinct spreadsheets that need to be uniquely identified.

I know let’s give them a pet name. What is your spreadsheet(s) called?

I will finish this article with a challenge as I am sure that many will be reading this and believing that it will only affect others and not your company.

My recommendation is take a simple test.

Pick a few key users in your company and if you have an open culture ask them not if they use one spreadsheet to carry out their daily tasks but how many.