Modern organisations do not suffer from a lack of data. They suffer from a surplus of it. Endless spreadsheets. Dashboards. Notifications. Reports. Tickets. Metrics. Surveys. Downloads. KPIs… CSV files breed quietly in shared folders like rabbits. The challenge is not in the collecting of information. The challenge is in helping others understand it.
“…but, it’s just a spreadsheet”
Before starting my apprenticeship, I probably viewed Excel in the same way many people do; a useful tool for tables, calculations, and the occasional desperate search for where column F went. If you share spreadsheets, you’ll know what I mean. Somewhere along the line, however, I began to realise that spreadsheets are not really about numbers. They are about behaviours. They’re about what people click, ignore, avoid and complain about. What they download and what they update or forget to update. Data is evidence of activity. Footprints left behind by everyday modern life. But raw data on its own is often about as useful as being handed every receipt you’ve ever collected and being asked to “identify the trends”. Technically possible but perhaps psychologically damaging. This is where management and presentation tools become important.
“Go Pivot!”
One of my biggest revelations was discovering how tools like PivotTables fundamentally change the way we think about and communicate information. I had been looking at spreadsheets row by row, manually, like a detective peering at a railway timetable, trying to work out if the next train goes to Chertsey or do I change before Weighbridge... PivotTables, however, allow large datasets to be summarised quickly into trends, totals, and categories that are actually understandable. Suddenly, those thousands of rows become activities, trends, patterns, spikes, bottlenecks and future support issues. In other words, information that humans can realistically act upon before retirement.
Charts and dashboards serve a similar purpose. A well-designed visual can communicate patterns instantly in ways raw tables can’t. We’re visual creatures. We notice shapes, spikes, colours, anomalies, and trends far faster than we interpret endless figures but, we do tend to put too much faith in an attractive dashboard.
“Eh… what?”
One of the most valuable lessons I’m learning is that spiffy professional looking reporting does not automatically mean reliable reporting. A dashboard can be beautifully designed and still be completely wrong. Poorly structured spreadsheets, duplicated data, inconsistent formatting, manual workarounds, and hidden formula errors can all undermine confidence in reporting outputs. The danger is that visual polish creates psychological authority. People assume colourful dashboards equal accuracy and sometimes they do. Sometimes though, they are simply pricey looking confusion.
Tools like Microsoft Excel, Power BI, and Tableau are incredibly powerful because they simplify complexity and improve visibility across groups but, they also require governance, validation, and structure. Otherwise, we risk making confident decisions based on unreliable information, which history suggests is arguably humanity’s greatest failure.
“I’ll share my screen”
I’ve started to appreciate that communication tools are not simply about distributing information. They are about helping people understand it. That sounds obvious until you spend time inside a large organisation and discover how often information technically exists while simultaneously remaining utterly incomprehensible. Tools such as Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, Outlook, dashboards, shared whiteboards, and workflow systems allow us to collaborate across locations and departments. Teams channels can distribute operational updates instantly. Shared files can be edited collaboratively in real time. Automated alerts can notify teams before problems escalate. Perhaps most importantly, remote collaboration tools allow people to remain connected without physically being in the same place, which, frankly, has transformed modern working life.
It is difficult to overstate how strange it would have sounded twenty years ago to explain that entire operational workflows could now be managed through a combination of Teams, SharePoint, Power Automate, Outlook, and Excel while sitting at home in slippers whilst sipping mediocre coffee. Civilization has made some questionable choices but, this one feels right.
“Break this down for me”
Communication must be adapted to the audience. Managers often need summaries, trends, risks, and dashboards to support decision making. Operational users usually require detailed workflow information to complete tasks accurately. Technical users may need highly detailed system information, permissions structures, or data-quality details. External stakeholders often require simplified summaries focused on outcomes rather than operational mechanics. The same dataset may therefore need to be communicated in completely different ways depending on who is receiving it. Which makes a lot of sense.
You would not explain a car engine to a mechanic and a passenger in exactly the same way. One needs torque ratios. The other simply wants reassurance that it’s alright; it’s meant to sound like that. Good communication bridges such gaps whilst poor communication creates confusion, disengagement and false confidence.
“Pay attention!”
One of the quieter lessons hidden inside all this is the importance of active listening. It’s a thing. Communication is not successful merely because information has been delivered. Understanding is the real goal. Different people interpret information differently depending on their experience, priorities, and prior understanding. Listening carefully to questions, misunderstandings, or concerns helps refine explanations and improve clarity. Oddly enough, this may be one of the most human parts of living with data. It’s about listening, because data might explain what is happening, but conversations go a long way to explaining why.
“And, so what?”
The more I learn about data, the more I realise that its effectiveness depends heavily on how clearly information is shared, understood, and interpreted. Data influences decisions. Decisions influence actions. Actions influence people. I’ve started to see communication tools and reporting systems less as technical accessories and more as part of the nervous system of any society. They help us coordinate, identify problems, prioritise work, and remain aligned around our shared endeavours. When they work well, we become more informed, responsive, and effective. When they work badly, everyone ends up staring at different charts and spreadsheets while insisting they are looking at the same numbers which, in fairness, is a surprisingly accurate summary of modern life.