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SO true. Imagine how much important business knowledge is tied up in an Excel macro, or -- God forbid -- in a ridiculously long formula stored in cell Q237 or w

• dragonwriter 9y ago
  > Imagine how much important business knowledge is tied up in an Excel macro, or -- God forbid -- in a ridiculously long formula stored in cell Q237 or whatever. Often none, and that's the bigger problem; those aren't vehicles that are good for storing business knowledge, so the business knowledge that went into them is often either stuck in someone's head (who may have left long ago) or lost entirely. An (possibly entirely correct in context, possibly not) application of that knowledge in a particular context is captured in the macro or formula, but the knowledge itself, including the factors from the context contributing to the particular application, is not captured.
  • ubermonkey 9y ago
    Fair point for sure. And this whole malady is especially common in finance departments, which are (typically) horribly documented anyway. It's all institutional knowledge, and those in that area tend to be long-term employees who don't know the difference between "things that are part of accounting and finance everywhere" and "things that are idiosyncratic to Acme Corp."