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Spreadsheets Don't Cause Problems?

I'd suggest that anyone who thinks that it's not possible to cause all manner of trouble with uncontrolled spreadsheets read this:

A formatting fubar involving an Excel spreadsheet has left Barclays Capital with contracts involving collapsed investment bank Lehman Brothers than it never meant to acquire.

Working to a tight deadline, a junior law associate at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP converted an Excel file into a PDF format document. The doc was to be posted on a bankruptcy court's website before a midnight purchase offer deadline on 18 September, just four hours after Barclays sent the spreadsheet to the lawyers. The Excel file contained 1,000 rows of data and 24,000 cells.

Some of these details on various trading contracts were marked as hidden because they were not intended to form part of Barclays' proposed deal. However, this "hidden" distinction was ignored during the reformatting process so that Barclays ended up offering to take on an additional 179 contracts as part of its bankruptcy buyout deal, Finextra reports.

 

(HT: Andy Hayler)

 

Published Oct 20 2008, 05:27 PM by Tim Wormus

Comments

 

Scott Kravatz said:

Sounds more like a procedural problem than an Excel problem.  To leave data in hidden cells on a spreadsheet is pure buffoonery.  If they entered the numbers wrong would the problem be an Excel one?  Garbage in, garbage out.

October 27, 2008 11:00 AM

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About Tim Wormus

In his role as an Analytics Evangelist for Spotfire, a division of TIBCO Software Inc., Tim Wormus is responsible for tracking and analyzing Analytics and Business Intelligence trends, as well as advocating their use and acceptance at Global 200 companies. Tim has published and lectured on analytics, including presenting an analytics tutorial at the Gartner Business Intelligence Summit and appearing on a panel with analytics guru Tom Davenport. His experience has led him to consult on data analysis projects for Global 1000 companies and instruct analysts in the life sciences, manufacturing and energy fields. He maintains a blog that discusses best analytics practices for organizations striving to be best-in-class. Before joining Spotfire, Tim managed the implementation and integration of bioinformatics software in the life sciences industry for Swiss software provider Genedata AG. Prior to that he developed informatics tools to address challenges in the drug discovery process. He earned degrees in Mathematics and Economics from Kalamazoo College, in Kalamazoo Michigan.

 

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