Challenge · Data & overview

Important knowledge sits with individuals and in Excel

Business critical knowledge lives in one head and in spreadsheets. That is fragile.

Sound familiar?

  • Only one person understands the spreadsheet
  • Holidays and illness bring things to a halt
  • New colleagues take a long time to get into it
A woman working in a spreadsheet while a colleague looks on over the screen, the knowledge sitting with her alone

What this is about

The business rests on one person

Key person dependency means a workflow can only run because one particular person knows it. A colleague built the sheet and knows how things are worked out. The day she is not there, you are left with a sheet nobody dares touch.

  1. Why the shortcut appeared

    We see it most often where the formal system is too rigid for an exception, and a spreadsheet is the quickest way round it. Nobody rings a helpdesk about a spreadsheet, so the shortcut is never seen, and each exception was reasonable in itself.

  2. What the dependency costs

    Holidays, illness and resignations stop workflows nobody had written down. New colleagues take a long time to find their way into the sheet, and until they have, the work still rests on the one person.

  3. When it is a search problem

    The rules may already be written down but hard to find. Then there is no dependency to solve, and making the knowledge easier to find is a smaller job than building the logic into a system.

The work in the sheet is not thrown away. The logic moves into a system the company owns, so the rules stay in place even when she is not there.

Start at the source

An overview is only worth acting on if the numbers behind it hold.

The safe route

How we start, without you committing to anything big

  1. Step 1

    Clarification meeting

    A short conversation about where there is most to gain, and what it is worth. Free and without obligation.

  2. Step 2

    Digital pre-project

    We map out what sits in spreadsheets and in individual heads, and what is most critical. You get a concrete recommendation with numbers behind it, and if it does not pay off, we say so. A fixed price that is offset against the first stage if you build on within 90 days.

  3. Step 3

    Development in stages

    We build in stages at a fixed price and take whatever pays for itself fastest first. After that, operation and support from the people who know the solution.

You can stop after each step without the effort being wasted.

What the solution usually consists of

We decide exactly what is needed together

Exactly what it takes, we work out together in the pre-project. A challenge like this one we usually solve with one or more of these approaches.

  • Digital advice Strategic use of technology and support for your processes, so you get overview, control and better insight into your own data. It is part of most projects.
  • System development A system built around your own process, when no off-the-shelf product quite fits.

Ready to talk to us?

Contact us

A concrete example

What we would do here

DTU and Open Experience. We have built structured data models and process support, so knowledge sits in a system rather than in spreadsheets. That is related to your task. The precise gain for you we prove on your own knowledge in a digital pre-project.

Frequently asked questions

Do you want your knowledge out of the spreadsheets?

A meeting without obligation, where we look at your concrete situation. You get a suggestion for the next step and a clear sense of whether it pays off. You talk directly to the people who build the solution.
  • A reply from one of us by the next business day.
  • A no-obligation review of your situation.
  • Clarity on which options are relevant to you.
  • A concrete plan, if you choose to go ahead.

Contact us

We get back to you by the next business day.
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