In response to the growing requirements of business to reduce the risks posed by unsafe spreadsheets, Q-Validus, in conjunction with its training and testing partners, BPP Learning Media and BTL Learning & Assessment, has developed Spreadsheet Safe™, a training and certification programme designed to help spreadsheet end-users and organisations assure and maintain good spreadsheet design, usage and control.
Patrick O'Beirne is an Authorised Spreadsheet Safe Trainer and offers the full training and certification programme.
http://www.spreadsheetsafe.com/product/syllabus/
The syllabus is aimed at the person who uses Excel to get an important job done.
If you're not sure about the skill levels of your current users, ask us about a
pre-course test that will let you know how familiar people are with these
essential basics. If you need more advanced coverage, ask us about that too.
The
Spreadsheet Safe™ syllabus was developed in conjunction with a number of the world’s
leading experts in the area of spreadsheet design, and control. Patrick O'Beirne was one of
their Subject Matter Experts (SMEs).
The Spreadsheet Safe™ certification programme is designed by Q-Validus™,
whose management team has decades of experience in developing and delivering
global certification programmes They bring a the clarity of
thought to making complex topics accessible to the ordinary computer
user and they know how to construct the kind of penetrating questions that elicit the real state of a
person's skill.
• Raises standards in spreadsheet development, maintenance and control
• Delivers the skills and knowledge required to validate work and ensure the integrity of the information
• Increases awareness of key issues and potential problems in spreadsheet use
• Ensures high awareness of spreadsheet audit routines
• Mitigates risk around spreadsheet use
• Gives confidence in the validity and credibility of spreadsheets
• Demonstrates a commitment to best practice
• Certifies to an international standard
In the package you get the training manual, access to the online courseware, and you must sit the
certification test within 2 weeks. The price is 475 euro (discounts for several
candidates from the same company) for a
one-day package of training and test, where from 9am to 3:30pm candidates work
through the syllabus and then after a break will sit the certification test
which is a 45 minute test of 32 items.
A sample extract from the training manual is available from
http://www.spreadsheetsafe.com/product/snapshot/
In our opinion, ten days preparation is enough provided you already know about formatting, passwords, range names, data import and export, SUM, IF and Lookup functions, error values, charting, (un-) hiding, the auditing toolbar, the Excel error checking indicators, and data validation. You can prepare for the examination well in advance by reading the book 'Spreadsheet Check and Control' and other good books on Excel. If you've never had a training course in Excel or read a book on it, it's going to be tough. Be frank with yourself and recognise that while you can leave some topics to a final course just before the exam, there is only so much new stuff you can absorb in a day. This is the kind of serious certification that employers demand, not a perfunctory test meant to pass anyone who simply wants a certificate. Success in this certification test means that the candidate is able in a minute or two to recognise a good or bad practice and describe how an error can be detected or prevented. To be that good you need an everyday familiarity with Excel and an automatic recognition of the situations that give rise to errors and how to reduce their incidence through planning, layout, and testing.
http://www.sysmod.com/az.php?a=190540400X&b=Spreadsheet+Check+Control Available worldwide from Amazon.
http://sysmod.buy.ie/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=188 Our offer - free shipping to EU .
For further information check out www.spreadsheetsafe.com and http://www.sysmod.com/spreadsheetsafe
There are software utilities for greater efficiency in spreadsheet error checking. We provide training in spreadsheet auditing aimed at power developers and IT auditors. We can perform the audit if what you need is a first look to evaluate the business case for more institutionalised practices of development and testing. Contact us to take this further.
Effective spreadsheet control needs not just control tools but people enabled to reflect on and improve their own work.
Theory X states that workers need to be closely supervised and comprehensive
systems of controls developed. According to Theory Y, employees may be
ambitious, self-motivated and anxious to accept greater responsibility, and
exercise self-control, self-direction, autonomy and empowerment.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_X_and_theory_Y
The spreadsheet controls market is dominated by the top-down process-heavy
supervisory methodologies that check up on the kind of spreadsheets that people
are creating. Inevitably this creates a blizzard of reports that require
filtering with an experienced eye to determine what is worth looking at.
A bottom-up approach should eventually reduce the amount of supervisory effort
by empowering knowledge workers to adopt responsibility for their work.
Back in 2001 Barry Boehm predicted that "The ranks of 'sorcerer’s apprentice'
user-programmers will swell rapidly, giving many who have little training or
expertise in how to avoid or detect high-risk defects tremendous power to create
high-risk defects."
http://www.cebase.org/www/AboutCebase/News/top-10-defects.html
Software Management article (Jan 2001) "Software Defect Reduction Top 10 List"
http://www.eusprig.org/conf2007report.htm
At the 2007 EuSpRIG Conference, Dean Buckner of the UK Financial Services
Authority reported once again that user training is still shockingly neglected. Many people
in the industry who spent most of their working lives working on spreadsheets
had often received just one or two days' training on Excel.
http://www.accountingweb.co.uk/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=170552
"I'm not seeing any change to the dumb solutions. It's still spreadsheet hell,"
Buckner said. "For each visit I do at a bank, I have a look at a little bit of
code. You can guarantee you will always see a little bit of stupid code."
In his
presentation he said that accreditation is seen as burdensome, risky and
difficult – it implies generally accepted view on good practice, for a start. As
the Spreadsheet Safe syllabus contains the view of a number of world experts on
good practice in spreadsheets, it addresses the concerns that Buckner raised.
http://www.sysmod.com/psp.htm The Personal Software Process (PSP)
The Personal Software Process is a disciplined approach to improving one's
software development process. Through a series of eleven cumulative exercises,
developers learn to track time and defects, estimate, and improve quality
through design and code reviews. All we are expecting spreadsheet creators to do
is the defect management part of this process – to be able to recognise defects,
correct them, and prevent them where possible.
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