Revising the Panko–Halverson taxonomy of spreadsheet errors

Abstract

Error taxonomies are useful because different types of errors have different commission and detection rates and because error mitigation techniques often are only useful for some types of errors. In the early 1990s, Panko and Halverson developed a spreadsheet error taxonomy. This paper updates that taxonomy to reflect human error research more fully. The taxonomy focuses on quantitative errors during development and testing but notes that qualitative errors are very important and that errors occur in all stages of the system development life cycle.