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We keep making the same mistakes with spreadsheets, despite bad consequences
Errors with spreadsheets are not only frustrating but can have serious consequences.
In August 2023, the Police Service of Northern Ireland apologized for a data leak of “monumental proportions” when a spreadsheet that contained statistics on the number of officers it had and their rank was shared online in response to a freedom of information request. In 2022, Íslandsbanki, a state-owned Icelandic bank, sold a portion of shares that were badly undervalued due to a spreadsheet error. Research on “cognitive load,” the amount of mental effort required for a task, shows that building complex spreadsheets demands as much concentration as a GP making a diagnosis.
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