What's wrong with this spreadsheet?

by Paul Baldwin | Nov 22, 2002 8:00:00 AM

Tags: Paul Baldwin

Takeaway: Recently, we posted a downloadable spreadsheet designed to help consultants track the quality of applications throughout the development project. A few members have suggested that it needs to be improved. Help us beef up this download.

A few weeks ago, we posted a programming quality spreadsheet download on IT Consultant Republic that was geared to help small application projects maintain quality throughout the project life cycle. More than 4,300 TechRepublic members have downloaded the spreadsheet, and a few of you have told us—in a discussion on the site and in e-mails to IT Consultant Republic—that you were less than impressed with the spreadsheet.

So, considering that a fair number of the people who read the articles on IT Consultant Republic are developers, it stands to reason that one of you has something similar that you’ve used and would consider an improvement over what we placed on the site. If so, send it to us. If we use it on the site, we’ll send you $50.

New or improved
Also, if you have suggestions about to how we could improve the download or if you want to send us a version that you’ve downloaded and improved, we’ll extend the same offer.

This isn’t the first time we’ve asked our members to help us improve what we offer on TechRepublic. In January, after a consultant evaluation form garnered a lukewarm response from our members, we asked readers to send us suggestions on how we could improve it. After revising the form, we reposted the new-and-improved version the following month to the delight, we hope, of our members. We also featured members’ comments on how we could continue to improve the download.

So, if you’re up for it, download the original spreadsheet, give us your critique, and either send us something that you’ve used in your work or e-mail the improved version to us. We’ll post the new or revised download to the site in January.