Smart Lemming Tip for Newbie Knowledge Workers: Learn the Tools of Your Trade
Your Productivity Tools
When you’re fresh out undergraduate or graduate school, you’ll most likely need to use basic tools to do your work. I’m referring to Microsoft Office Professional Edition and related Microsoft products. If you have a limited skill set with Office, then do a deep dive, becoming an expert in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, even Access. Get a jump on it while you can. While the basic Office Professional is fundamental, so are and Visio and Project.
Smart Lemming tip #1: Eventually, you should also be proficient in Visio and Project. I can’t tell you how many people I run into that don’t know how to use this software or if they do, they don’t know how to use most of the features. Your documents should have a level of sophistication conveying the importance of your work, but also showcase it as well.
Microsoft Visio and Microsoft Project
Visio is invaluable since you can use it for work flow, organizational charts, mind mapping, and the like. I always use it to break down my ideas using the org chart functionality. I’ll sometimes brainstorm with Post-It Notes, then capture these notes in Visio. For up and coming product managers, it’s perfect for documenting use case scenarios to think through your product requirements.
Everyone must learn project management, whether it’s to manage a team project or for your own projects. Your company may use Microsoft Project already, so you’ll have to understand project management concepts and use it to manage or document your work in a project too. I secured two important jobs because my documentation was impressive due to my proficiency with all the Microsoft products listed above.
Being an expert with Microsoft tools are the basic skills of your work, but it’s a requirement for moving up the ladder. Which Microsoft tools do I use the most today? Only Word and Excel. I found Project to required too many key strokes, while I could easily accomplish the work in Excel more effectively. Why am I recommending Project then? Because your employer may require you to use it as part of your job. Become an expert at using this software.
Smart Lemming tip #2: Learn project management and know Microsoft Project and Excel inside and out.
