Having recently hit the desk as an A1, I have noticed that I am making a ton of mistakes when sending deliverables to seniors. Most of these mistakes are minor formatting things, however, I have noticed they are quite common amongst most deliverables.
I know everyone will be different and have their own list, but I would be interested to know what are you checking every time before you send out a deliverable to a senior (both PowerPoint and Excel)?
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When I was a first year, if I made the same formatting mistake multiple times, no matter how dumb (even something as simple as page numbers), I would write it on a sticky note and put it on my monitor. Hard to forget something when you are constantly staring at it.
1) PDF, and Print out in color, flip through. Circle changes. You will notice little things more subtle on screen
2)CTRL-F / Find and Replace
" " (double space), replace " " (single space)
the "Company" and "XXX Inc." (the actual company's) name - check for consistency, capitalizing, and not repeating "The Company...the Company"
CTRL-A, then click "Arial" or whatever font should be in the entire deck - to make sure for each slide, it's all the same font (repeat for each slide)--annoying but sometimes worth it
F4 button - utilize after 1 of these actions, to repeat checking much quicker
Gridlines - horizontal and vertical - as a visual check
CTRL SHFT C, CTRL SHIFT V --bullet points or generally any formatting. Then F4
Logos - consistency w/ other groups pasting shitty old logos or blurry ones vs. another slide
Numbers - Revenue, EBITDA, etc - consistent across slides, especially of other groups, especially Ratings Advisory, who marches to their own dime from a formatting / numbers standpoint - and Moody's/S&P adj. numbers will be diff anyways
PPT - align left, right up, down, etc - do this 100x. Also using the mouse to capture a group of the page quickly (yes, as fast or faster then keyboard)
PPT - group into Sections each section - for sanity - right click - Add section
Charts - consistency of height/width, then align left/r/u/d
Slide Master - manage that, delete blanks, make everything consistent across sections
Excel - CTRL-F, Options--Find All (Across Workbooks)--utilize this
words with a "-" vs. blank space --idk "customer-centric vs. customer centric" - terrible example, but CTRL-F, make consistent
"And" and ", and"--make consistent whether for a list of 3 you say 1, 2, and 3 or 1, 2 and 3 (I prefer "1, 2, and 3 - always add comma).
Idk - that's all I got for now. Also - working with guys in Europe, they'll say US100 vs. $100. Change that garbage.
In the end, after a while you will stop caring, or not have enough time and say F it, it's their problem. If they dont care, i dont care. But for now, there's a few. Easier understood visually in practice vs. writing this run-on list
Thoughts?
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