Intelligent use of technology: venturing from MS excel into MS word

In this second article in the mini-series, I take up the baton from Ryan Kaye and share my experience of being reintroduced to the world of MS Word after nearly 20 years of MS Excel dominating my working world. When I think about it, MS Excel really was my go-to tool for all parts of my QS role; I avoided MS Word that much that I prepared letters and report templates in MS Excel, not daring to go near MS Word because I could not control it in the same way I could with MS Excel.

That changed when I joined @Quantik because, often, one of the key outputs is a written report that documents our valuation of a particular issue. In this article, I will fly through that journey and offer some tips and guidance to construction professionals that might help them overcome the same fear that I was facing.

The challenges

Whilst the purpose of the written report was to document my valuation, I came to understand the importance of a clean, professionally presented document. If I put it another way, when you read something that is a bit all over the place, contains errors, and looks like it has been rushed together, does it influence and persuade you? Even if the valuation is sound, a poorly prepared report can undermine this.

I also came to understand the importance of branding the report. It needs to do enough to say who has prepared it and be in line with any brand standards, but branding is more than just colours and a logo. It is about the look and the feel of the report, the features that make it unique from another business, and the ease at which a reader can navigate the report.

You need to actively think about who the readers are and how they will consume information – some people want the headlines; some want detail. So how do you cater to both?

My journey

Faced with these challenges, I realised how little I knew about MS Word and its functionality. Yes, I completed my dissertation 20 years ago, but the world has moved on. Those little workarounds I had were ok for one-off pieces of work but became time-consuming and inefficient when I was repeating them multiple times in the same document.

I realised I needed numbered headings for sections, follow-on numbering for paragraphs, insertion of pictures, labels for pictures, inclusion of a table of contents, and inclusion of a list of figures/tables, etc. I thought, or at least foolishly hoped, that I would open MS Word, start doing it, and the application would deal with the formatting for me. That was my first mistake; MS Word is only your friend if you know what features are available and how they are intended to be used.

The challenges I faced were compounded by deadlines. You have to hit the deadline, but you want the quality to be the best it can be, so why does the application keep moving things around in a way that I don’t want it to do? Why is the application causing me so much more work at a time when I need less? Let’s just say there were moments when the laptop nearly took a short journey out of the window!

Thankfully, help was at hand, and the laptop remained safely positioned on the desk. I discussed the issue with colleagues, and, through knowledge sharing, we built an understanding of the things that a QS needs to know. I realised that I can’t be the only QS who experiences these challenges, so I developed this into a competency list, and every team member works through this to upskill themselves in the right areas.

Practical tips and guidance

From the competency list, I would recommend mastering the following basics. If you do this, then you will develop solid foundations.

• STYLES:

  setting your styles in the “Home” ribbon. This allows you to set the standards (font, size, position on page, numbering) of the text you are writing, whether that be for paragraph text, headers, captions and more, but it quickly allows you to format your document, which previously felt like an endless task

• CROSS REFERENCING:

  references to other parts of the document, whether that be paragraph numbers, figures, tables, or pages, are found in the Insert ribbon. Previously I’d manually referenced each location only for the number, requiring numerous changes as I’ve altered the file. The cross-reference function automatically updates the reference, so you don’t need to.

• TABLE OF CONTENTS:

  the ability to automatically create a table of contents has been a game changer, and this is done by using a header style for each section of the report, then selecting “Table of Contents” within the References ribbon.

• CREATE A TEMPLATE

  whilst there are templates within MS Word, make your own and reuse it. There’s no point in reinventing the wheel every time you need to use it. Find the areas it is needed and set it up for how it should look and work.

Final reflections

MS Word is a very useful tool in the working world. However, if you are not using it regularly and/or not making regular time to keep your skills sharp, you can quickly fall behind.

That was possibly my biggest reflection: what competency do I need, and does our team need, when it comes to using the various Microsoft applications? Yes, there are probably hundreds, if not thousands, of functions, but what does a QS really need to know? I am pleased that through my experience I have developed tools that will help others in the team know what they need to know.

In next week’s article, we continue with our intelligent use of technology mini-series with an article on digital site-recording-keeping software.

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