As reported by the BBC,
... two Harvard economists admitted a faulty spreadsheet calculation caused errors in a study used by numerous politicians to support their austerity policies.
Oh, well. It's hardly the first - or last - error in a spreadsheet that resulted in adversity for countries, corporations, or someone who has been downsized from an office to a cubicle to the tiny confines of a spreadsheet cell. In corporate America, spreadsheets are used on a daily basis to make "informed" decisions. You might not have been hired based on spreadsheet data, but you could certainly be terminated based on a number that falls out of an acceptable range.
As much as oil and water, our lives are governed by Excel. As you read these lines somewhere in the world, your name is being dragged from cell C25 to D14 on a roster. Such a simple action, yet now you'll be asked to work on your day off. It is useless to protest. The spreadsheet has been printed - the word made mesh.
At my former dysfunctional employer ("DysCo"), spreadsheets ruled the day. Sure, they had heavy-duty, Byzantine enterprise systems like Oracle to handle all the corporate number-crunching. They spent tens of millions of dollars trying to make Oracle produce the reports they wanted, but most of the managers relied on Excel for decisions on layoffs. Excel's primitive beauty and ubiquity enabled managers to track the all important metrics that mattered: how much revenue each of us generated by the quarter, month, week, or day.
While Oracle reported the numbers for Wall Street's use, Excel reported the names of the human sacrifices to be tossed into the volcano if those numbers disappointed. Now we find that the evil Excel hatchet man had a pretty poor track record in terms of reliability. Maybe some of the volcano-tossed corporate "discards" were let go based on bogus numbers. Oh, well. Too late now.
The appeal of Excel in a large organization such as DysCo was that termination decisions could be made by managers who didn't even know the people involved. Section managers or district managers scrutinize spreadsheets, obsessively looking for employees whose revenue output might have fallen as a result of project completions or delays. They then send the order to the local supervisor to cull the herd.
The people who end up being culled are often terrific folks who are on tap to manage or support upcoming projects. More than once, DysCo lost major new projects when clients learned that the person who was to manage the work got laid off a week earlier. Oh, well. Live by the spreadsheet, die by the spreadsheet.
When decisions are made remotely, the local supervisor is no more than a puppet. They don't seem to mind, though, as long as they make their numbers and get their bonuses. The employees understand that they're nothing but cells on the spreadsheet of someone in another office, another state, another rung on the corporate ladder. From the executive team's perspective, it's all good. The laid-off people might bitch and moan, but once they're gone, there's nobody to hear their complaints (unless you stop by Glassdoor.com and check our company reviews by current and former employees).
CBS Marketwatch noted that:
Close to 90% of spreadsheet documents contain errors, a 2008 analysis of multiple studies suggests. “Spreadsheets, even after careful development, contain errors in 1% or more of all formula cells,” writes Ray Panko, a professor of IT management at the University of Hawaii and an authority on bad spreadsheet practices. “In large spreadsheets with thousands of formulas, there will be dozens of undetected errors.”
Given that Microsoft says there are close to 1 billion Office users worldwide, “errors in spreadsheets are pandemic,” Panko says.
If my work resulted in a near 90% error rate, chances are I'd be gone in a hurry. Excel, though, is here to stay, at least at DysCo.
Excel serves a vital purpose: it keeps managers from having to think or feel. Imagine the paralysis that would ripple across the company if termination decisions required a manager to take into account the employee's experience, dedication, problem-solving abilities, client relationships, interpersonal skills, commitment to excellence, ability to bring out the best in team members, and potential for innovation. Chaos would ensue! Decisions would take longer, and be tainted by emotion.
While 88% of Excel spreadsheets contain errors, at least they're math errors, not errors of human emotion. While that's cold comfort to people who've been laid off when their number came up, it's still not enough to distress the managers who wrap themselves in a nice, comfy spreadsheet to chase away the chill. Excel is here to stay. It's all good.