Spreadsheet good practice: is there any such thing?

Abstract

Various techniques for developing spreadsheet models greatly improve the chance that the end result will not contain basic mechanical errors. However, for every discipline in which a given technique is useful, there is likely to be another in which the same technique works badly. As a result, the author urges that EuSpRIG does not succumb to internal or external pressures to champion a particular set of "best practices", because no such set is optimal in all spreadsheet applications.