Too many managers have decided that they don’t need to train their staff on any common office software like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, or Teams because their staff can find the answer to any question on YouTube. They figure it saves the cost of a training course from an expert. I think they are wrong…
Category: Latest Information
Moving from WFH to the office: Introduction
You’ve been working from home for the last two and a half years. Now you are starting to return to the office some days of the week. You’ve got comfortable with your WFH setup. Going back to the office will be a little strange, but you think things will just go back to the way…
Moving from WFH to the office: Attending a hybrid meeting or presentation
This article is part of my series on changes business professionals should prepare for as they return some days to the office and we move from a work from home (WFH) environment to a hybrid meeting environment. You can see the full list of articles here. In this article I share three tips for attending…
Fixing the “Values don’t add to 100% because of rounding” issue in Excel pie charts & tables
Too often I see a footnote on an Excel chart or table in a presentation that says “the values don’t add to 100% because of rounding.” Sometimes the values don’t add to 100% and there is no footnote, it just appears to be a mathematical mistake. Both of these situations cause doubt in the mind…
Hybrid Event Lesson 12: Have one place for details
This article shares one of the lessons I learned when planning and running a hybrid class reunion event in May 2022. Read the introduction and see the other lessons in this series here. Lesson If you have ever attended a conference or reunion, you know how many emails and messages you get from organizers. Each…
FinancialViz: Non-zero-based column graphs mislead the viewer
I am no longer surprised when I see a column graph in a quarterly or annual financial report that is created to give the impression that the results shown are better than the actual numbers shown. The graph does not start the vertical axis at zero so the height of the columns is not accurately…
FinancialViz: “cool” visual doesn’t give accurate comparison
Too often I see financial professionals get seduced by the desire to create a “cool” visual. Maybe its one they’ve seen online or in a publication. It looks really neat and they think it would make them look goo if they used it in a presentation. Too often these “cool” visuals don’t communicate the message…
FinancialViz: waterfall chart using rectangles instead of Excel introduces doubt
When things don’t add up in a data visual used in a financial presentation it introduces doubt in the mind of the viewer. If this visual is not correct, what else may not be correct? When presenting financials we want to inspire confidence. It is important to ensure that the visuals we create are accurate.…
Why “We’ll send one person to a public course and then they can train the entire department” doesn’t actually improve productivity
Instead of investing in a customized training course on a key software tool for a group of employees, too many managers think the cheap route will work. They send one person on a public course with the instruction that when they get back they will teach the rest of the group what they learned. The…
Use critical thinking skills to accurately interpret a graph (& create accurate graphs yourself)
When you look at a graph, you immediately interpret the message using the visual cues in the graph. If one column is twice as tall as another column you deduce that the value of the taller column is double that of the shorter column. When looking at graphs we need to use our critical thinking…