Reducing Overconfidence in Spreadsheet Development

Two Experiments in Reducing Overconfidence in Spreadsheet Development

This chapter describes two experiments that examined overconfidence in spreadsheet development. Overconfidence has been seen widely in spreadsheet development and could account for the rarity of testing by end-user spreadsheet developers. The first experiment studied a new way of measuring overconfidence. It demonstrated that overconfidence really is strong among spreadsheet developers. The sec...

Are We Overconfident in Our Understanding of Overconfidence?

In spreadsheet error research, there is a Grand Paradox. Although many studies have looked at spreadsheet errors, and have found, without exception, has error rates that are unacceptable in organizations, organizations continue to ignore spreadsheet risks. They do not see the need to apply software engineering disciplines long seen to be necessary in software development, in which error types a...

A Novel Approach to Formulae Production and Overconfidence Measurement to Reduce Risk in Spreadsheet Modelling

Research on formulae production in spreadsheets has established the practice as high risk yet unrecognised as such by industry. There are numerous software applications that are designed to audit formulae and find errors. However these are all post creation, designed to catch errors before the spreadsheet is deployed. As a general conclusion from EuSpRIG 2003 conference it was decided that the ...

Teaching spreadsheet development using peer audit and self-audit methods for reducing error

Recent research has highlighted the high incidence of errors in spreadsheet models used in industry. In an attempt to reduce the incidence of such errors, a teaching approach has been devised which aids students to reduce their likelihood of making common errors during development. The approach comprises of spreadsheet checking methods based on the commonly accepted educational paradigms of pee...

Reducing Knowledge Overconfidence by Reducing the Threat of Knowledge Cue Utilization