Comments on: Spreadsheet Hell

By: I, too, am in spreadsheet hell « Number Cruncher

I, too, am in spreadsheet hell « Number Cruncher — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 10:47:19 +0000

[...] a little too strong for the situation I’m about to describe. But I just stumbled across an old post in Smurf on Spreadsheets linking to a paper written by the author, which struck an immediate chord with me. Without [...]

By: Eusprig 2007 « Smurf on Spreadsheets

Eusprig 2007 « Smurf on Spreadsheets — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 23:13:32 +0000

[...] http://smurfonspreadsheets.wordpress.com/2007/03/07/spreadsheet-hell/ [...]

By: Simon Murphy

Simon Murphy — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 16:09:10 +0000

Or
WE have just wrtten a paper covering that..

By: Simon

Simon — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 03:22:46 +0000

Ross
I think what you meant to say was:
“Key man, funny you should mention that, I have just been *contributing* to a paper on that very subject.”

By: Ross

Ross — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 09:45:31 +0000

Ha!
Had an interview back end of last week and this very topic came up (Key Man) – I looked very sad explaining that i had a friend who has written a paper on it!

By: Simon

Simon — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 13:50:19 +0000

Mike
next of all you’l be accused of trying to make yourself indispensible. (I’ve seen it happen). Maybe you can use this as a bit more leverage to get them to register the risk?
I dont see it as redundancy, more developmental, for you mentoring someone, and for them building useful skills.

By: MikeC

MikeC — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 13:03:42 +0000

I’m very much in the same situation as Will – though not at an SME. I’m pretty sure that 25,000+ employees disqualifies a company from that category…

This week, I had Monday and Tuesday off due to sickness. Despite certain processes being fully documented (to the level of press THIS button, enter a date HERE etc), none of my colleagues (within the company’s MI department) felt confident enough to try and deal with certain business-critical reports that had to be out on Monday. So they went out after I returned on Thursday. Admittedly, although being documented, I had never had the opportunity to take anyone through the process to demonstrate it. So they opened the first workbook, saw a couple of userforms pop up, panicked and ran away as fast as King Arthur facing the Killer Bunny.

This is a direct result of 2 things – one of which Simon mentioned above.
1. “Rush-rush” – don’t show anyone else how to use that, you need to dev this. And they don’t have time to be shown anyway.
2. Cost. Why pay someone else with dev skills when we have Mike? Despite pushing for 2 years that we need someone else with at least rudimentary VBA skills that can be developed “on the job”, there is still no redundancy in case I’m hit by a bus.

But like the Murphy’s – I’m not bitter….! ;-)

By: Simon

Simon — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 11:42:15 +0000

I think this key man dependency thing is a consequence of the rush rush rush mentality. I really would not blame the individuals in most cases. I’ve never been given time to document something properly – the minute its through testing and out the door the next project starts. I always say well shall I doc this or dev that? dev always wins (thats what I like about Excel/VBA in fairness)
The Seattle thing is still a couple of weeks away, its after the MVP thing, of course due to NDAS we’ll never find out if there is much common content!
Will, its a universal problem in my experience, interesting suggestion about influencing the business as they see the value. That warrants some thought I reckon.
cheers
simon

By: Will Riley

Will Riley — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 07:58:21 +0000

Simon,

I agree with your sentiments. I suppose I am one of those key men. It’s fairly unavoidable in many SMEs with a small number of employees though. In that scenario you’re so right in saying that documantation is a key factor. I know mine has improved as the business has (gradually) seen the value in what the MI/BI area is able to deliver.

Regards,

Will

By: Marcus

Marcus — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 23:55:33 +0000

Hi Simon,

Nice summary.

I’ll also raise the key-man dependency flag. I’m working on a project right now of migrating a series of Excel and Access files with 40K LoC across them – and there’s only one employee who really understands it and (surprise, surprise) nothing in the way of technical documentation.

All the best in Seattle. Give my best to Bill ;-)

Cheers – Marcus